Threats
by Kimiko93
Summary: A large-scale military operation against Oto reunites Team 7 sooner than anticipated. Now they have to relearn to work together to face all remaining threats, both from the outside and within. And who thought putting them on a team together was a good idea in the first place? Sakura-centric Team7 fic. Slow developing pairings. Rated for violence and some sexual content later on.
1. Drumming Song

_A/N: Happens before Shippuuden, but elements and characters from Shippuuden will still be incorporated. There's a general OOC thing going on where all characters will be smarter and snarkier than they are in canon. There will also be pairings. But they take a while. A long while._

* * *

**Drumming Song**

It started with drums.

She felt the vibrations shaking her before she even heard a sound.

Shaking her to her very core, her heart aligning to the rhythm resounding from all around here, filling her room, filling the streets, filling the entire village.

They were beating the drums in the ancient chorus, calling for blood and gore and justice and victory, or whatever else you needed to get a whole village ready for war.

It was the first time during her lifetime that Sakura ever heard it. It was a sound she wouldn't soon forget.

Despite her awareness of the purpose of drums beating in a hidden village, there was something oddly soothing to the sound. Something familiar. Something telling her she belonged here, despite how foreboding it all was.

Hurried steps now mingled with the even drumming sound, coming from the hallway leading to her door. Only when her mother entered her room did Sakura actually sit up in her bed.

"Sakura, sweetie?" Her mother sounded worried. She had heard the drums before. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Sakura replied, getting out of bed and rushing over to her wardrobe to retrieve clothing and weapons. "But mom, promise me not to leave the house until we know what's happening, okay?"

"Alright," her mother agreed, watching her getting dressed in a hurry. "Where are you going?"

"Tsunade-sama's office," Sakura answered, pulling on the gloves Tsunade had gotten her for passing her last medic ninja exam. "They'll be handing out assignments there that might explain the drumming, and if not, Tsunade-sama will at least have an explanation." Or at least that's what they'd been taught about standard protocol in case of drums back in the academy.

"Will there be a war?" Her mother glanced out the door to the small balcony, old worry lines clearly visible in her face. Sakura shrugged.

"It's what the drums are for, as far as I know," she explained. "But if we're the ones drumming, that probably means we're on the offensive. So you should be relatively save here." She double-checked her supply bag. "But still, don't leave the house until you get official notice, you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you," her mother assured her and pulled her into a tight hug when she turned to leave. "But you be careful out there as well, understood?"

"Of course," Sakura mumbled into her mom's shoulder before turning away and leaving her room through the balcony door, the cold and misty morning air intensifying the chill in her that the ever-present drums had caused.

* * *

The dark and foggy streets of Konoha were completely empty. Which was to be expected - streets were for civilians. The rooftops however were quite busy, with every shinobi who remembered the drumming protocol using them as a shortcut to reach the command center. Not even the occasional complaint about the noise a person walking across your roof made was an issue right now. It might have been 4 AM, but the drums left nobody asleep.

Sakura had already climbed the railing of her balcony to reach the rooftop of her house to join the crowds hurrying towards the Hokage's office, when a familiar voice startled her.

"No need to hurry, Sakura-chan. They want us last."

Turning around, she saw Naruto, sitting on the roof of a neighboring house, the long strands of his apparently new forehead protector blowing in the wind, aloof grin in place. He even had the moon at his back, for maximized epicness, which still did nothing to make his bright orange jumpsuit any less recognizable, even at night.

"You're back!" Sakura shrieked in delight, glad to have at least something familiar to soothe the dread the drums had caused her. "...Did you practice that entrance?"

Naruto laughed his signature whole-hearted laugh that stretched across his entire face and body and would have been contagious if it weren't for the steady rhythm of impending doom in the background.

"Nah, I'm just awesome that way," he assured her, looking about as giddy as she felt about seeing him again. It had been almost a year and a half since he'd left to go training with Jiraiya-sama, and he'd grown about half a foot since then, she realized, as Naruto crossed the distance between their rooftops in one fell swoop and pulled her into a hug so tight it made her bones groan. "I missed you!"

"I missed you, too," she replied, fighting for air and patting his back soothingly. "We didn't expect you back so soon."

"Soon?" He asked incredulously and let her go. "It's been like forever since I left, and you call this soon?"

"Well, Tsunade-sama told me not to expect you back this year." Sakura shrugged. "Or even next year, so that's all I had to go by."

"Ooh, you've been spending time with Baa-chan?" Naruto beamed at her. "How is she doing these days?"

"Busy, I guess," she replied, nodding towards the direction of both the Hokage's office and the unrelenting drumming sounds. "And I've been actually training under her while you were gone."

"Eeek!" Naruto shrieked and jumped away from her a little. "Does that mean you're all scary and destructive now?"

"You'll see." Sakura smiled sheepishly, before turning somber again. "So, is your return related to whatever is going on here at all? And what do you mean they want us last?"

"Well..." Naruto scratched his head and looked towards the command center as well. "So, the pervert has been doing some sort of... Research while we travelled, I guess. Gathering intelligence, he called it, and it didn't even involve women or bath houses, so I guess it might be something useful. So a few days ago, he got back from doing some sort of scouting thing, don't ask me, I don't question this anymore, and said we had to get back here asap, no questions allowed, and so we've kind of been running all the time. Then we got here about an hour ago, I guess, and he even woke up Baa-chan, have you ever seen her at 3 in the morning? Not a pretty sight. Anyways, so he woke her up, we somehow lived to tell the tale, and then they'd had some secret discussion, sent me to get you for later, and then this drumming business started."

"I... see," Sakura said, trying her best to comprehend the rapid succession of information he'd just given her. "So you don't actually know what this is about?"

"Nope!" Naruto admitted freely. "Just that they think we're important for this, or something."

"But you do know these drums usually mean war, right?" She gestured towards the dwindling stream of Shinobi still rushing to the Hokage's office all around them.

"So that's why everyone's freaking out!" Naruto slapped his forehead protector, and then shook his hand in dismay because it hurt. Sakura couldn't help it, she had to laugh. Again. Despite it all. It was just so good to see Naruto again. She hadn't even realized how much she'd missed him until now.

"Pretty much," she agreed. "So did they say for how much later they wanted us?" The first shinobi were already returning. Their administration was nothing if not efficient. At least in times like these they were. Maybe they should consider making Tsunade do her paper work at 4 in the morning more often.

"Ah, huh." Naruto followed her gaze. "I don't know, they didn't mention a specific time or anything..."

"So we should probably get going before we miss something important, right?" Sakura suggested, smiling.

"Right!" Naruto positively beamed at her before he leapt away. "Race you to Baa-chan!"

Rolling her eyes and sighing didn't keep her smile from staying in its place while she followed him.

* * *

Sakura lost the race.

Not that it surprised her; she'd never been one for speed and Naruto was pretty much the epitome of endurance. So he could just go all out in a friendly race at 4 AM before going to war and still be fresh as a daisy, while she had to regulate her speed somewhat. Or maybe he just didn't think that far ahead. Same difference, really.

There were desks put up in front of the command center, where different high-rank government officials were handing out scrolls to the shinobi that arrived there. The drumming sounds were coming from the balcony above, where Sakura spotted several retired shinobi she knew from council session. While no longer taking missions, these people usually had an advisory or administrative position. It made sense for them to go on drumming duty; they wouldn't need to save their strength for the upcoming fights and were old enough to remember the rhythm quite intimately.

Upon spotting their arrival, Shizune, who was handing out scrolls to the medics that had shown up, immediately waved them through into the building. So apparently, they really were quite important, as Naruto had said. The all-around somber mood seemed to have gotten to him after all; he was no longer beaming happily at everything and everyone the further they got into the building. The command center was positively bustling with activity, and nobody they encountered seemed too happy about it. Or about seeing them. In fact, some people they met actively glared at them, Naruto in particular.

"What's their problem?" Naruto asked her with a hushed voice after a whole group of people had just thrown nasty glances at them when they'd let them pass first. "They act like we're responsible for this war thing you were talking about!"

"I don't... know..." Though while she was still forming those words, it suddenly occurred to Sakura that maybe she did know. This was a grand scale operation. So grand that apparently the entire village was needed to prepare for it, hence the war drums. Tsunade had requested Naruto's and her presence specifically. People were looking at the two of them like they were the cause of the problem.

Wait a minute.

"Naruto... You don't think..." Sakura tried to keep her voice calm. "I mean... All of this... Could this maybe have... Something to do with... Sasuke-kun?"

Next to her, Naruto stopped dead in his tracks. He gaped at her, eyes wide, mouth wider.

"That... That would make sense, somehow, wouldn't it?" He seemed completely lost in thought for a moment, then bolted away faster than she could see, further up the stairs. Sakura only caught up with him when he had already reached the door to Tsunade's office, which he unceremoniously threw open without bothering to knock.

"Are we getting Sasuke back?" He loudly asked into the room before marching in. Sakura entered behind him, closing the door as silently as possible.

"Oh, there you are."

Tsunade was not in a good mood. Unlike Jiraiya next to her, and the two other people currently in her office, Nara Shikaku and Yamanaka Inoichi, she wasn't visibly tired, due to the genjutsu she used to keep up appearances, but she had that pissed off look in her eyes which she always got when she'd been woken too early (too early being before sleeping off her hangover) and had only paper work to look forward to. With a nod, she dismissed the two men, who left not without sharing a concerned look that Sakura caught when moving away from the door.

"So are we?" Naruto had proceeded to the desk where he stared down at Tsunade intently, who glared back at him.

"We really need to work on your respect and obedience," she snarled. "Be glad I like you, or I would just leave you home."

"But you can't get Sasuke back without me!" Naruto insisted. Tsunade rolled her eyes.

"I didn't say that's what we're actually going to do," she pointed out. "If you haven't noticed, this is kind of a big thing that's happening right now. Involving the entire village, drums, and starting at 4 AM. Do you really think I'd make that much fuss just to get your boyfriend back?"

That make Naruto choke and kept him busy coughing for a minute or so, before he finally managed an indignant "WHAT?!" which was swiftly ignored.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Tsunade continued as if nothing had happened. "Though I will admit, that getting the Uchiha boy back _is _part of what we're doing. More specifically, your part." Her glare almost silenced Naruto's triumphant cry.

"Our part in what?" Sakura asked, looking around uncomfortably. "What exactly is going on?"

Tsunade sighed. Deeply.

"Well, remember Orochimaru's parade of freaks?" She asked somberly.

"They were kinda hard to miss, yeah," Naruto answered. "And pretty obvious about being freaks, too."

"Exactly," Tsunade continued. "Turns out he's got a whole village of those. Well, in numbers, at least. He keeps them split up between four different bases that we know of. We don't really know what he's planning with all those shinobi, but the fact that he has them is troubling enough. He's also used his strength to attack us and there have been incidents recently where Oto nins attacked Konoha teams within our own borders. So while it appears as if he's not planning any more major attacks on us for the moment, there's no way to be sure he isn't planning something against us."

"So we're gonna strike first," Sakura concluded.

"Yes," Tsunade confirmed. "We're getting ready to besiege all of Orochimaru's hide-outs, as long as he resides in the one closest to us. Our numbers will suffice, with a little aid from Suna. Thank the gods you get along with the new Kazekage so well."

"...We do?" Naruto asked, clearly not quite up to date on recent events.

"Well, I heard you kicked his ass when they attacked us," Tsunade explained, shrugging. "And since then he holds you in high regard. Same difference, really."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Naruto demanded, slowly catching up. "_Gaara _is Kazekage now? But... But, but... He's my age!"

"He sure is." Tsunade grinned sheepishly. "And it's still me sitting on this chair. Weak performance on your part, wouldn't you agree?"

"And what are we supposed to do about Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, before this could result in any kind of argument.

"Catch," Tsunade demanded and threw a scroll at her. "The two of you basically get a secret S-rank mission to sneak in once we get to the hide-out and drag the Uchiha boy out there kicking and screaming if need be."

"So we're bringing Sasuke back and you're paying us for it?" Naruto asked. "Awesome!"

"Well, not really," Tsunade relented. "It's not going to be easy, we don't exactly know where the boy is hiding, just that Orochimaru keeps him close, or how cooperative he's gonna be. But don't get me wrong, we _need_ him back. It's insulting enough he got taken from us in the first place."

"He... Wasn't exactly taken..." Sakura brought up quietly, biting her lips. Not her favorite memory there.

"I know, that's what makes it worse," Tsunade continued. "I don't know yet what the village has done to him to make him voluntarily leave us for a freak who wants nothing more than take over his body, but it's gotta be pretty bad. And if word of that spread, that would paint Konoha in a bad light. Not to mention that the boy is kind of a national treasure, last of the Uchiha not in a bingo book yet, Sharingan and all that jazz. So getting him back is kind of a big deal."

"Yeah, you don't need to tell us that," Naruto pointed out. "It's what we've been training for the last year, right?"

"...Right," Sakura agreed reluctantly under the strict gaze of her master. Tsunade's mouth thinned at that and she didn't seem too pleased with her answer. And truth be told, of course 'just' getting Sasuke back hadn't been the only thing she'd trained for. Sasuke's part in her motivation had been a frequent point of contention between them, as Tsunade refused to train a lovesick child who just wanted to get her crush back. So she'd constantly had to prove that she had less shallow motivations as well. Such as finally being useful and able to contribute to the team or just plain not being almost completely helpless anymore. But she couldn't bring herself to break Naruto's enthusiasm, and it was at least part of the truth, anyways. So no harm done. Probably.

Tsunade sighed again.

"Yeah, well, you see... It's because of that that we can't afford not getting him back," she continued. "So that's the, ah, other part of your mission. I don't want it to come to this, and I'd really prefer just getting him back here and cooperating, but if that's not possible..."

Sakura had to keep from shuddering at that implication. Surely, Tsunade couldn't mean what Sakura thought she meant... Right? And if she did, wasn't it incredibly stupid to entrust, of all people they were currently rallying, Naruto and her with that mission, the two people in the village the least likely to obey when it came to that?

"You... You want us to _kill_ him if he doesn't come willingly?!" Naruto all but yelled. "Hell no, we won't do that!"

"Ideally, you won't have to," Tsunade snarled, eyes gleaming dangerously. "And you're only supposed to do it if he doesn't come _at all_, got it?"

"No!" Naruto protested. "I'm not doing a mission that could include me killing Sasuke! And neither will Sakura-chan! Right?!"

"Right," Sakura agreed as firmly as she could under the circumstances. It was her Sasuke-kun they were talking about here, after all... And it was her master giving them a look of severe disappointment. And annoyance.

"You are still _shinobi_ whose first and foremost obligation is to this village," Tsunade spat at them. "Remember that bit about personal feelings not getting in the way? We didn't teach you that for fun. Well, the way you're acting right now, it seems like we didn't teach you that at all, but no matter. So will you take the mission, or do I have to assign it to someone else who will be more _cooperative_?"

Oh. So this was where this was going, Sakura realized. She took a deep breath, stored the mission scroll Tsunade had thrown at her in her pouch, and touched Naruto's wrist soothingly.

"We're taking it," she than assured her master, squeezing Naruto hard when he opened his mouth to protest and glaring at him for effect.

"Good for you." Tsunade seemed grimly pleased with her. "Now leave. You'll find your temporary assignments in the scroll, we'll contact you once your little extra mission starts. Dismissed."

* * *

"Are you insane?!" Naruto yelled at her as soon as they had left the office and were sort of out of earshot. "How can you agree to this? They want us to kill Sasuke! How can you?!"

"Calm down," Sakura hissed at him, dragging him further down the corridor by the wrist until she'd found her destination. It was a small, dusty room full of old mission reports and other documents which would muffle most of their conversation and ensure them a minimum of privacy.

"Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down?" Naruto broke free from her grip and stared her down furiously. "You just agreed to kill Sasuke! Didn't you listen?"

"I did," she assured him. "Better than you, it seems." She brushed through her hair nervously, for the first time feeling it was only 4 AM and that she missed out on a few hours of sleep. "Now, listen to me. Tsunade-sama does not want to see Sasuke-kun dead. If she did, she wouldn't have assigned this to the two of us in the first place, okay?"

"But she said -," Naruto tried to interrupt her, but Sakura would have none of it. Not right now.

"She said we'll have to kill Sasuke-kun, if there is no other way of getting him back," she paraphrased. "Sure. That's what she had to say. But don't you realize how much freedom this actually gives us?"

"...No?" Naruto was still not convinced.

"Well, first of all, if we manage to kill him, we can manage to not quite kill him and take him with us after all," she pointed out. "Also, if we don't do that, try proving that we didn't kill him. Maybe his body caught on fire and we couldn't bring is corpse. Or he fell down into some abyss, or whatever else we can come up with. Bottom line, we can still choose to let him go and not kill him if there's no other way, and won't suffer any consequences as long as he stays out of the village's business. And we _had _to agree to do this ourselves, because otherwise, she would have given the mission to someone else who probably would be a lot less creative in carrying it out."

"Huh." Naruto seemed to have calmed down and now regarded her with something between curiosity and astonishment. But at least he was listening now without looking like he wanted her head chopped off.

"Or we can just say he beat the crap out of us, woe is us, so sorry, won't happen again," Sakura pointed out with a slight smile. As if Naruto would agree to do that.

"Never!" He protested almost immediately. Sakura laughed slightly.

"Okay, then we'll come up with something better if we have to," she calmed him down. "And that's a big if." She opened the assignment scroll and scanned the instructions. "Says here we are to sneak into the underground hide-out in a few days and find him there. According to our scouts, the one they're at right now has only three exits, and they all will be highly guarded, so there won't be any way for Sasuke-kun or anyone else to flee unnoticed. We just don't know how many people are down there, so there might be some resistance, but oh well, never expected this to be easy."

"Right." Naruto smiled back, this time not his all-consuming beaming smile he showed the whole world, but a more somber, slightly sad and incredibly vulnerable smile that almost broke her heart. "So I guess we're doing this together, huh?"

"Seems like it." Sakura had to force a smile, even though the look on Naruto's face made her feel more like crying. "The way it should be."

"I guess..." Naruto still didn't seem too happy about that. "I just... Wanted to keep my promise, you know? To bring him back _for_ you."

"I'm not holding you to that," Sakura said, uncomfortably shifting her weight from one foot to the other, avoiding looking at him anymore. "We're doing this now, one way or the other." She scanned through the scroll again for additional information. "Oh, great. You got assigned Combat Unit C until our special mission starts, and I get the healing tents. Seems like you're getting all the fun," she joked half-heartedly.

"You can heal now?" Naruto asked, his sudden state of melancholy gone as fast as it had come.

"I trained under Tsunade for over a year," Sakura reminded him.

"Yeah, like, smashing walls and the ground and stuff, I thought," Naruto explains. "That suits you, but now you can heal, too?"

"Uhm, yes?" Sakura frowned. Usually people told her how much better healing suited her than fighting. And truth be told, mending bones came a lot easier to her than breaking them, but in most if not all combat situations, that was not what she wanted to do. Sure, it was amazing to watch flesh growing back together seamlessly under her hands, but after spending the beginning days of her ninja career in a nurturing position by default, tearing the flesh open in the first place felt so much more satisfying.

On the other hand, in their profession, nobody would ever give her any medals for being able to cause much harm. That was nothing special, more like a minimum requirement. Sure, Tsunade was widely known for her combat prowess. So was every other ninja who made it into his or her fifties. What set her apart were her incredible healing skills, which had always been criminally undervalued by just about every hidden village there was. So Sakura saw more of a future for herself in that department, on the long term. For the short term however, she was quite content tearing stuff apart.

"So, are you any good at it?" Naruto asked her teasingly.

"I am," she answered, a dangerous edge in her voice. "I'm also very adept at punching holes in the ground, so wipe that smirk right off your face."

Naruto threw a glance at the ceiling-high shelves, overstuffed with records and reports and all kinds of documents.

"Punching me here will hurt you more than me," he pointed out. "If I know anything about Baa-chan, then it's that if she's teaching you, she's also making you take care of her paper work. That means you stacked some of this stuff. That means she'll have you put it back when you mess it up."

"She'd make you help me," Sakura mused. "And then I could just let you do all the work."

"Yeah, but I have no idea how this stuff works and you do and you have no patience," Naruto countered. "Especially not with me."

"You make a compelling argument," Sakura acknowledged, nodding grimly. "Also, we need to get going. The drums have stopped; I think we're moving out soon."

"Right." Naruto turned serious as well. "There's like a war going on here."

"So I've heard." Sakura read through the mission scroll another time. "You better go find combat unit C."

"And you need to find the healing tents." Naruto hugged her again. "This is so weird..."

* * *

From the first beat on, Tenten's house had been overflowing. Overflowing with tears.

Silent tears, of course, they were shinobi and doing their duty and crying out loud would help nobody. But still. When the drums had started going off, her mother had started to treat all of them like dead people.

And statistically, they were.

In places like Konoha, there were two kinds of ninja. The ones with careers, and the ones in the system. Your career usually started with your parents. If one of them had a career, you might just get one. If both of them had one, you were a shoe-in, unless someone with more famous parentage needed your place on a Genin team. Then chances were you'd get thrown into the system.

The system started after you graduated the academy but failed to impress your Jounin teacher. Or to have someone with a significant last name on your team. That usually pulled you through, no matter how weakly you performed. She might know that from experience; the jury was still out on that.

System ninjas were proper ninjas. They might even get ranks like Genin or Chuunin, they just didn't really take official exams for it. Those were for show. System ninjas were not. They were remarkably unimpressive and unrecognizable. At least the ones that stayed alive for a while.

Usually, they'd be trained in big groups to perform the dirtiest work, and either the most unspectacular missions that paid so badly you might be better off as a waiter, or the most dangerous missions, where they were essentially cannon fodder. The small print on the memorial stone.

Tenten's family had no last name for a reason. From what she knew, they were pretty big, with all the cousins and second and third cousins she and her five siblings shared a house with, and that wasn't counting the people who had moved out or were even more distantly related.

Right now, there were only four career ninjas in the whole family. One of them would retire soon, having lived to the ripe old age of thirty-six.

Of course, the no last name thing wasn't the rule; there were plenty of system ninjas with a last name. Those names just didn't come with significant abilities like super power eyes or mind control tricks or your own bunch of animal companions. The lucky ones had a family familiar enough with the system to be adept at some kind of ninja art.

Her family always told Tenten how lucky she had been.

For one thing, and this was the most obvious one, with her team assignment. She would not have made a Genin team if someone hadn't paired her up with a Hyuuga of all people. And a personal favorite of the man who'd conveniently been assigned as their Jounin instructor.

Tenten however was quite sure that luck didn't have that much to do with it. While Lee's chances had been even worse than hers, no chakra and no family to back up anything, Gai-sensei probably would have taken him as a student even if their team hadn't made it. Neji had confided that his family, especially at the time, would have been a lot happier had he just been thrown into the system, like any good branch member should. Some even went as far as to claim that the branch family of the Hyuugas had been the first system ninjas around, long before there had been hidden villages.

Oh no. What pulled them through was Neji's status as a prodigy, even for a Hyuuga, and her significant talent with weapons. A talent she had acquired by hounding every half-way talented ninja in her family for instruction ever since she'd understood how the village worked. Jutsus and the talent to use them were determined by blood. Weapons were universal.

And so here she was, sitting in the large kitchen of the house, surrounded by siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and her parents, and everyone was preemptively mourning everyone. Currently, they were expecting back her oldest brother, the only one she had left out of three, who had gone to the Hokage's office to get their assignments for whatever war they were headed to. Because drums meant war. And war meant casualties. And most casualties occurred for the system ninjas.

Now, granted, things had started looking less bleak ever since Tsunade-sama had returned. Under her rule, the system got two-tiered, and those who showed promise when it came to chakra control and the like received medical training. Nothing that would lead them to greatness, but combat medics died less than system ninjas. Especially during wars. Or maybe the statistics were a little off since combat medics had been rare the last few years.

So statistically, Tenten, her younger brother Penghe, her older sister Xinlu and her cousin Yaohuan were a little less dead than everybody else.

Over the years, she had learned to distance herself from the constant death in her family. Or business in general. She was doing her part to prevent her untimely demise and trained her younger siblings and cousins so they might have a shot at escaping the system, but that was all she could do, and she had accepted that.

That didn't make sitting in that kitchen any easier.

It took until about half past 6 for her brother Singnan to return, his face looking grim, but at least not like he was about to read out a eulogy, even though their combat assignments were pretty much just that. The three medics they had gotten the medical tents, obviously. Everyone else got assigned combat units three, four and Singnan himself even unit two. The lower the numbers, the higher the casualties usually were.

"So what about me?" She asked once her brother was finished. "Am I staying home?"

"I don't know," Singnan replied. "You're not on my scroll, at least. So maybe."

She tried to ignore the dirty looks some of her cousins threw her. Being the only career ninja in the house and only one of four in the entire family hadn't exactly made her popular. She was used to that.

"Then you can help me with preparing some food and taking care of the house," her pregnant and thus off-duty cousin Mei suggested. "We sure won't be enough around here anyways, so that's good!"

"I thought you were too important to stay home," her young cousin Zhongwen said accusingly. He wasn't even out of the academy yet.

"Whatever, let's get going!" Singnan gestured for them all to get ready. Usually their father was the head of the family, but he was currently hospitalized. Lucky for him, all things considered.

Tenten got up with the rest of them and helped handing out the food they actually already had prepared while waiting for Singnan to return. Technically, the state provided food on missions, and so far this had been handled as one, but supplies also had a tendency to run out before reaching the system ninjas, so they had learned not to rely on that. Even though this had improved under Tsunade as well.

It wasn't until the people assigned to combat unit four had left that Neji showed up at their door. His presence always made most of her family (predominantly the female half) close to falling to the ground and worshipping him - not only did he have a last name, but a damn famous one at that. Hyuuga family politics weren't important in their household.

Today however, some of her younger cousins merely shot him dirty looks, as he sure as hell wasn't assigned a numbered combat unit, so Tenten rushed forward to meet him.

"What are you doing here?" She said instead of a greeting.

"I figured you wouldn't get the message," he replied and handed her a scroll. She took and screened its contents. Combat Unit C. Letters meant importance. And increased survival rates; not exactly because their tasks were less dangerous, but because they were specialized and the people in them were career ninjas who knew what they were doing. Most of the time.

"Team assignment?" She asked after realizing that. Neji nodded. She cracked a smile. "So what did your part of the family get?"

"One or two," he answered grimly. "Some of them even letters, or so I've heard. Hinata-sama is with us, unsurprisingly."

"Singnan got two," Tenten told him. "Everyone else three or four. My, my, aren't we moving up in the world?"

"We need to get going," Neji said instead of showing amusement at her joke. "Gai-sensei and Lee are waiting for us."

"Joy of joys," she sighed and went back to inform her family that she was too important to stay home after all. And statistically a lot less dead than anyone they knew.

* * *

_So there we go. First chapter. Tenten is a regular POV character and gets her own subplot, that's why she's tagged as a character. Naruto is also kind of a character in this, but more in a team context, so his tag is Team 7. Even though he gets one or two POV scenes. Sasuke will turn up, and he will get POV scenes, and he's like, the male lead or something. Sakura is the absolute focus and main character though. _

_I'll try to keep a somewhat regular update schedule? Like, a chapter every two weeks until my 9 chapter buffer runs out, or something. After that, I make no promises. Feedback is appreciated, and stuff._


	2. Into The Fire

Thank you all for the alerts, favorites and comments! You guys rock. For this chapter and the next... Few, please keep in mind that the M rating isn't just up there for decoration; things get violent. In a very detailed way. Nevertheless, enjoy!

* * *

Into the Fire

Tenten couldn't sleep.

And small wonder; she was lying in a tent compartment of Combat Unit C. Next to her lay Neji. And around her, the air was filled with moaning, groaning and gasping, accompanied with the occasional wet slapping sound of genitals meeting, and the heavy smell a lot of sweaty bodies and the other resulting fluids produced.

After having done so for more than two years, she wouldn't have thought sharing a tent compartment with Neji could ever be uncomfortable.

But it was. The silence between them felt _very_ uncomfortable. And she knew he wasn't just silent because he was asleep, no; if the sounds (and smells. And general discomfort.) kept her awake, they were doing the same for him. His senses were sharper than hers, after all. And in their profession, wearing earplugs was a synonym for suicide.

She sighed.

"You'd think they'd have learned to be quieter," she attempted to break the silence. "Being ninjas and all."

Neji next to her snorted.

"The individual volume is quite low," he replied dryly. "It's the amount of people… Copulating that causes so much noise."

That made her chuckle.

"If anything, I'd have thought they'd prefer to go into battle well-rested," he continued. "If this goes on for much longer, nobody here will get any sleep."

"Ah, well." She stifled a yawn. "The testosterone release is supposed to improve battle skills, though. Makes you more competitive and fiercer, or something. So it probably evens out."

"Is that so," he said disdainfully. "I for one would prefer to go to battle with a clear head, well rested and without additional hormonal influences."

"And that's why we're here and having this conversation instead of participating," she noted, suppressing a chuckle. "Though I don't think many people share your views on this."

"Evidently not," he scoffed as he was half drowned out by a particularly loud moan from somewhere.

"Well, other people get drunk before and during their battles," Tenten continued and rolled over on her stomach.

"That's even more counterproductive," Neji protested. Tenten shrugged.

"Apparently makes you more fearless, or something," she explained.

"And disoriented," he countered. "And irrational. And hung-over."

"Yes, it doesn't really work with our style of fighting," she admitted. "But the people we get our weapons from apparently do that."

"Idiots," Neji sneered.

"Would also be louder," Tenten pondered. "And ew, the smell would be worse."

"So we should count our blessings?" Neji concluded, not sounding convinced at all. She chuckled again.

"Looks like it, really," she said and yawned again. "I just hope our bunch here gets tired soon."

* * *

Sakura missed how their forces reached the Oto base they were assigned to. She missed how they lined up. She missed how they started the siege. She also missed how the Oto ninjas returned fire. And she missed how they lured the battle away from their homes and into the more treacherous terrain of the surrounding forests.

The fate of the medic, really.

What she hadn't missed, however, were the wounds the Konoha ninjas sustained from their efforts. And those pretty much told her all she needed to know.

Oto nins were weird.

Well, granted, she'd known that before. Not exactly from first-hand knowledge, since the Oto nins she'd faced personally had been pretty normal, all things considered. They'd even used techniques that related to sound. Or at least air pressure. Sort of.

But from what she'd heard from retellings, there had only been one other Oto ninja actually using techniques related to sound, and that had been the girl Shikamaru had to fight (there was a pattern there, somewhere), who had used her flute of all things to cast some sort of genjutsu.

Every other Oto nin she'd heard about since hadn't used any techniques related to sound, at all. However, all their fighting styles closely related to just plain _weirdness_. Kiba was especially fond of mentioning how he'd had grown a second head from his shoulder and that he'd been scarred for life since.

And oh boy, the weirdness she had encountered in the roughly thirty-six hours the siege had taken so far.

Despite what some maps or academy teachers would have you believe, there was no actual Hidden Sound Village to be found or besieged anywhere. No, they were really just attacking some underground hide-out somewhere close to Kusa Gakure that housed a whole damn lot of ninjas affiliated with Orochimaru, and according to their sources, well, to the shinobi she treated that had heard something from someone on the battlefield, Orochimaru was residing right here at the moment, just hadn't shown his face in the battle yet.

And Sasuke-kun was supposed to be with him.

That was why the majority of their forces was now besieging this particular place; combat units B, C, 3 and 4. Combat units A, 1 and 2 were the ones actually _in _Oto at the moment, a place in the Land of Rice Fields, where her academy lessons and school book maps had told her the 'village' was located, taking care of a similar hide-out there. There were also other, smaller combat units employed at different places, where similar hide-outs were located.

Of course, she only heard that from wounded people who had friends who were somewhere else. And they were all in awe at how well Jirayia-sama had done his research. Well, he'd always been thorough in that regard, if not much else.

The wounds these weird Oto ninjas were causing were... Well, something different, to say the least. Usually, you knew what to expect from a village; Konoha ninjas were most likely to burn you, Suna ninjas used wind, and Iwa ninjas pelted you with rocks. Or buried you underneath them. Or dragged you underground. Iwa ninjas were nasty people. At least according to what they'd been taught by war veterans with a distinct hate of anything Iwa-related.

So far, she had treated burns, cuts, crushed body parts, half-drowned people, poisons of all kinds, some of which she'd never even heard of, weird rashes, victims of some sort of strangulation that technically _should not be possible on the battlefield_, leave alone in the numbers they were coming in, and one guy had been infested with _leeches_. As a jutsu.

Those thirty-six hours had been more diverse than her whole education as a medic had been so far.

Sakura had slept a total of eight hours between shifts. The whole medical squad was on a diet consisting of soldier pills and caffeine supplements mixed with drugs that caused your adrenaline levels to rise and kept them from receding for a while. And seeing how lacking in numbers the medical department was in general, dividing them among several locations all over the continent had spread them a little thin.

And thus far, she hadn't heard a word of what was supposed to happen with her little extra mission.

Currently, she was on Chakra aided healing, since she had taken her second four hour break just three hours ago. Shifts ideally went eight hours aided healing, eight hours unaided healing, four hours of sleep. She'd been allowed to take her first break earlier though, since the beginning hours had been slow. Now she got a new patient as soon as she finished another. The fact that two of their twelve capable healers were currently asleep and two more were on unaided healing didn't make things any easier. They had about eight more medics in training, picked up by Tsunade's new program, who were only allowed to do unaided healing or treat basic wounds.

At least until they were totally swamped. Which thankfully hadn't happened yet.

During those thirty-six hours, they had only lost nine patients. Three of those had been hers, five had been Shizune's, since they got the worst cases, being the most renown medics around, if they had a fighting chance. Casualties that weren't brought in were reportedly low, as well. About ten more, as far as she'd heard. Meaning 19 out of 250 people deployed at their location had died so far. Not a bad average, really.

So all in all, things were actually going pretty well. If it weren't for the unease gnawing on her.

She didn't want to be in here. She wanted to be out there, fighting, and knowing what was going on. Sure, if someone she was close to had died outside, she probably would have heard, but still, she'd like to make _sure _she hadn't lost anyone she cared about yet.

Currently, Sakura was just closing a basic but very deep cut down someone's arm. Nothing major. In line after him, she'd seen someone with slight burns and a broken leg. That'd be a little more tedious, but well within her capabilities. The really freaky cases hadn't been happening for a while now.

"I don't need a medic!" Someone familiar claimed in front of the medical tent. Sakura rolled her eyes. Famous last words.

"You hear that often?" Her patient concluded.

"You have no idea," she affirmed. "Dibs on that one!"

"But you already have another patient lined up!" The apprentice who divided the cases among them complained. "And this one doesn't sound like an urgent case..."

"Sorry, just acting on orders," another, severely annoyed voice said for what didn't sound like the first time. "I'm doing this because I might get killed if I don't, not because I like you, so get in there already."

Naruto was pushed inside the tent, closely followed by Kiba, who seemed severely annoyed, while Naruto looked mildly freaked out and wouldn't meet her eyes. There was a nasty gash across his midsection that was bleeding out quickly.

"And we're done here," Sakura told her patient whose wound she had closed maybe a little too hastily, but judging from the general condition of his body, he wouldn't mind the scars. "Good luck out there and hope I won't see you again. In a nice way."

The apprentice was taking a closer look at Naruto now.

"That's a little more severe than he sounds," she informed the general audience. "But still not in your field of responsibility, Sakura."

"It's okay, I'll take her next patient." Shizune hurried into the tent after Naruto and Kiba, looking appropriately stressed out. "And after this she's off duty for a while. Move, move, move!"

Kiba pushed the still reluctant Naruto into her compartment.

"How did they get you to be his baby sitter?" Sakura snorted and dragged Naruto onto her table.

"Hinata-chan was freaking out," Kiba explained. "So Neji made me do it. He freaks _me _out."

"Grown any new heads yet?" She asked with professional interest while taking off Naruto's jacket.

"Am I not here?" Naruto asked annoyed, and apparently a little bashful at getting undressed by her.

"Nah, I stay clear of the freaks," Kiba explained.

"How very sensible of you." Sakura now cut Naruto's shirt open to get better access to the wounds. "Then I feel a lot less conflicted about sending you out there again."

"That's harsh of you," Kiba complained, theatrically clutching his chest as if she'd just hurt his feelings. "But if you insist, my country needs me and all that stuff."

Sakura waved goodbye without taking her eyes off Naruto's stomach.

"How did that happen?" She asked calmly and dabbed at the wound with a piece of cloth to clean it a little and get a better view of the cut. Naruto squirmed away from her a little.

"I don't know..." He mumbled. "Spur of the moment thing..."

"So do you feel anything besides pain and light-headedness from blood loss?" Sakura continued her examination. There seemed no organ damage from the cut. Good for him.

"I don't even feel that," Naruto answered, finally accepting his fate and relaxing a little. "I'm fine, really."

"That's just your adrenaline speaking," she informed him. "Hold still, this might sting a little." She started disinfecting the wound. Naruto flinched a little, but grit his teeth to avoid making noises. "So what's going on outside?"

"Well, we're fighting a bunch of guys," he answered, forcing a grin. "I think we're winning, but they just keep popping up from nowhere. Oh well. And my combat unit is awesome! We're like, four people short of a reunion."

"Four?" Sakura now moved on to closing the wound. "Why four?"

"Well, you're here, we're still working on getting Sasuke to join us, and I think Shikamaru and Ino are helping their dads with logistics, or something," Naruto counted down on his fingers. "But everyone else is there!"

"And you're doing okay?" She pushed him to lie down slightly so she could get access to the entire wound, noticing a weird mark on the closing flesh. Looked like a seal. Huh.

"Yeah, we're doing fine," he assured her nonchalantly. "Except for that scratch there... Oh, it's gone."

"Yeah, I healed it," she explained with a smirk. "It's what I do. And that was way more than a scratch."

"Didn't feel like it." Naruto shrugged. "So you actually do that, wow."

"What did you think I was going to do, set you on fire?" She raised her eyebrows at him. Naruto just laughed.

"Nah, not that bad," he assured. "It's just... the pervert tried to heal me once, and he made a mess of it." Naruto showed her a scar on his right side, going from just above his hip bone to his arm pit. It was uneven and looked like there was dirt in the scar tissue at parts.

"Yeah, I'm a little better than that," she informed him with a satisfied smirk. "I also clean wounds. You need to do that."

"Noted, noted." Naruto dangled his feet absentmindedly.

"Either take another patient or get out!" The door apprentice barked into their general direction.

"She's off duty!" Shizune hectically reminded everyone before rushing over into her compartment. "And so are you," she informed Naruto.

"But I just slept three hours ago!" Sakura protested.

"I'm totally fine now!" Naruto protested louder.

Shizune looked around conspiratorially.

"Yes, but your special mission will start soon," she explained in a hushed voice. "And you'll need all the strength you can get for that. So clear this compartment right now and get over to the resting tents."

They shared a glance, Naruto excited, Sakura mostly worried.

"Finally," he exclaimed under his breath and linked arms with her to drag her with him. "About time we got going, don't you think."

Sakura nodded. Outside the healing tents the world smelled like blood, smoke and death. A sudden wave of dread overcame her. Maybe being stuck in the tents, which were sealed against smells and the like, wasn't such a bad fate in these situations after all.

* * *

"Casualties are at twenty-nine."

"Enemy casualties have just reached seventy-three."

"Approximately twenty to thirty enemies left underground."

"Thirty-three of our own currently off duty."

"No sign of the main targets so far."

Ino soon realized that working in logistics and intelligence was about a thousand times more comfortable than doing actual combat during a war. It was also making her hate numbers, even more so than she already did.

Her job was, essentially, to be her father's secretary. Yamanakas had specialized in using their mind related jutsus for communication on the battle field, and thus her dad and some of her other relatives were sitting in a circle and reported random numbers and facts almost non-stop. Her task was to write those numbers down and learn how it was done, so soon she'd be able to be one of the numbers telling people as well.

There was something slightly gruesome about relating to her comrades as nothing more than random numbers of casualties, combat units and people currently off duty. Just that they didn't even say people when referring to... Well, anyone, really.

Occasionally, she got to go one tent further and deliver a sheet of paper with numbers to Shikamaru and his dad and a few other people who were doing the tactics business of this endeavor. Sometimes, Tsunade and Jiraiya were there. Jiraiya also had numbers. More often, Kakashi was there. He was the commanding officer when Tsunade was busy doing other stuff. Healing or fighting or looking for their 'main target'. From what she gathered, that was supposed to be Orochimaru.

Huh. Had it been her village... Er... Hideout under attack and she'd been an evil overpowered genius who was reportedly creepy enough to scare people away by just looking at them, she'd have been out there defending it immediately. And giant snakes probably wouldn't hurt in battle, either way. Well, they would hurt her current side, but like she'd give a damn about that if she were an evil overpowered creepy genius.

But she wasn't. She just happened to be the person with the prettiest handwriting currently in the tent. No, really. They'd try to make other relatives write down stuff for a while, so she could try linking with logistic people's minds and reporting numbers. It had been going pretty well, even if that was, like, even more creepy than just writing them down, but unfortunately, the numbers had been almost illegible. Which was kind of an achievement considering they'd been numbers.

Then again, her mom hadn't forced them all to do the flower shop accounting for her in perfect handwriting for years, had she. Weird what kind of combat applications that turned out to have.

Other changes of scenery occurred when someone came to ask them for poisons. Dealing with plants and flowers, supplying those or at least the ingredients for them also came naturally to the Yamanakas. Gave her top marks back in the academy, even. Too bad Sakura had been better with numbers. Otherwise Ino might now have been the one to be in cahoots with the Hokage and get all the special attention. And on a team with Sasuke-kun. Oh wait, who was she kidding, her family name and heritage would have prevented that, either way. Dammit.

"No new reports."

"Enemy casualties at eighty-nine."

"No new reports."

"Two more of our own off duty."

"No new reports."

"Alright, let's take a short break then," her father commanded and then ordered two of her uncles to go find their replacements and go to sleep, and her to go over to Shikamaru and his dad to deliver the current numbers.

The strategy tent had a full house going on. Tsunade, Jiraiya and Kakashi were all there, looking grim. Even Shizune, who was head of the medical department, had turned up and she wasn't around much except to update casualty counts. Uh-oh.

"May I enter or is sensitive information being disclosed?" She asked before entering.

"You're running around delivering sensitive information," Tsunade pointed out. "It's not like you can become more of a security risk."

She bit down a comment on that and entered, handing the current numbers to Shikamaru who had come over to her while the grown-ups whispered over some sort of scroll or map or whatever. Right. So apparently there was sensitive information being disclosed that she wasn't supposed to hear. Pffht. They could have just said so in the first place.

"What's going on?" She asked quietly, poking Shikamaru in the side to make sure to get his attention.

"Some sort of secret mission," he grunted back. "I don't know the specifics, either. And if I did, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you."

"Right." She rolled her eyes. "So I apparently haven't achieved my full potential as a security risk yet, after all."

"You have, for a Genin," Shikamaru specified. "No, really. They usually don't make those carry around these numbers. Be proud, or something."

"Stop being so high and mighty, Mr. I-only-became-Chuunin-because-I-was-too-lazy-to-keep-fighting," she hissed at him and elbowed him for emphasize. He raised his hands defensively.

"I was just stating facts," he pointed out. "Also, give this to your father and don't read it." He handed her another scroll.

"Did anyone die we know?" She asked somberly. That was something the numbers didn't tell her. She knew exactly how many people were deployed where, when and for how long and how many had died and how many were injured and how many were just sleeping, she'd spent her hours here writing down all of that almost non-stop, but she had no idea who the _people _behind those numbers were and it freaked her out. And Shikamaru was her best shot at getting anything but reproachful looks out of as answers to her questions.

"Chouji's dad has been injured and is off-duty," he answered somberly, chewing his lips. "I don't know how seriously, but apparently still alive."

"Chouza-san?" She had to struggle to keep her voice down. She had always liked Chouji's dad. He was nice and less strict than her own parents and he made nice food and they'd always had awesome cookies when she was little.

"And that's why you usually don't get the names," Shikamaru said. "Makes you worry, gets you distracted."

"I worry anyways," Ino pointed out, chewing her lips now as well. Nervous habit she tried to get rid of. Unfortunately, you couldn't just put polish on them to make them taste bad like on finger nails, and the rough equivalent of lip gloss usually tasted good. "Have you heard from Chouji, then?"

"No." Shikamaru shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Just overheard people talking. Chuunins usually don't get this much intel, either, you know."

"So who's worried and distracted now, huh?" She asked triumphantly while still keeping her voice down. "I can see right through you, Nara Shikamaru!"

"We've known each other since the day you were born and you're specialized in gathering information," Shikamaru replied, not intimidated or appreciative in the slightest. "I'd be worried if you _couldn't _read me."

She stuck her tongue out at him. Then she got an idea.

"You know that communication thing my family does?" She asked. Shikamaru gave her a look usually reserved for the mentally challenged.

"Is that how you've been getting those numbers all day, it all makes sense now," he deadpanned. She elbowed him again.

"Well, what I mean is, I can talk to people with that," she specified. "People like, I dunno, medics who've been taking care of Chouza-san?"

"I don't think you're supposed to do that," he pointed out, glancing at the important people who were still busy whispering about more important things than them.

"Well, try and stop me." She rolled up her sleeves and made few quick hand-seals.

Getting into the minds of people to control them was something completely different from trying to communicate with them. It was kind of easier and more difficult at the same time. Easier, because she could stay in her own body and didn't have to use all her mental capacities to control another. More difficult, because she had to keep the other person's consciousness intact instead of chasing it out, and she also had to find that person first.

Well, she'd discovered that communicating with people whose mind she's already been in before was easiest. So her choice for a target was made quickly.

_Ino to forehead girl, I have a question for you!_, were her invitational words to Sakura's consciousness, which offered astoundingly little resistance for somebody who'd once been able to push her out completely.

_Sleeping. Go away._, was Sakura's apparently not all that conscious answer. Ino rolled her eyes.

_Listen, Chouji's dad was injured, can you tell me how he's doing? _She tried sounding as nicely as possible.

_Hasn't died yet, wasn't my patient, so all I know is that it wasn't too serious. _Geez, Sakura's helpful mind was getting her sleepy, as well. So tiredness was contagious. Good to know!

_Please, just get up and check on him quickly, I'll owe you!_, Ino urged her on as kindly as she could and trying to subtly mess with Sakura's mind a little, just to see if she could.

_I hate you. Stop tickling me. _Sakura didn't sound any less annoyed, while her consciousness sort of slapped Ino in the face. She was weird like that. Then everything got a little shaky. That was also weird. Logistic people didn't shake like that.

_What are you doing?_, she asked, trying not to sound, er, think, or whatever, too freaked out. Which she was. Because shaking wasn't normal.

_I'm trying to find Akimichi-san's bed so you'll leave me alone._, Sakura answered groggily. _Or I could just push you out. But that would require more focus than reading a file. Do not want._

_You're the best!_ Ino would have sent her a mental hug but didn't feel like testing her capabilities any further.

_He's recovering from blood loss. Currently asleep. Nothing major, everything still attached. Can I go back to sleep now? I have important stuff coming up. Not fun. Stop tickling. _Sakura's mind just wouldn't give in to maybe reveal what sort of important stuff she was up to. Stupid subconscious thing of hers. But anyways. Ino had what she wanted.

_Thank you so much! I owe you! _She tried to send her relief with her, but Sakura shook it off.

_Don't mention it. Want sleep. Out of my head. _And with that, Ino was unceremoniously shoved out of Sakura's mind again. What was that about focus again. Stupid Sakura and her mental weirdness. Oh well.

"He's alright," she then told Shikamaru, trying to keep her breath still. Sakura's mind was exhausting. "Recovering from blood loss, but otherwise doing okay."

"Don't tell me," Shikamaru said grumpily, but couldn't quite hide the concern in his eyes. "It's not my dad."

"Just... Taking a short break," Ino explained. They were still keeping their voices down as to not alert the important people in the room. "Sakura's mind is harder to get into than most. I'll tell Chouji in a minute."

When she had recovered enough to use the jutsu again, she was in for an unpleasant surprise; Chouji didn't offer much mental resistance, and she'd practiced her jutsu on him often enough to be able to grip him easily. He was shaking worse than Sakura, though, and due to his low guard, Ino caught glimpses of the fight he was in. He was doing okay, and Kiba and Lee apparently had his back, but this still wasn't the best situation for a full-blown conversation. Oh well.

_Your father's doing okay. Just sleeping off his blood loss right now. No need to worry. Keep kicking ass._

She felt a surge of relief before she left, though Chouji wasn't able to have a full mental conversation with her while fighting. Would have been too distracting for him, anyways.

When she resurfaced, she noticed she was holding onto Shikamaru for support. Chouji had been even more draining than Sakura. It was a good thing that she didn't need her chakra supplies to write down numbers.

"What happened?" Shikamaru whispered insistently, supporting her best and as subtly as he could.

"Chouji's okay," she told him. "Fighting, but okay. And he got the message."

"Good job." Shikamaru actually smiled at her for that. Wow. Rare occurrence. Usually he just rolled his eyes at her.

"What are you kids up to over there?" The important adults suddenly seemed to have noticed them again, judging by this remark of Jiraiya's.

"Nothing," Shikamaru answered quickly.

"I'm just a little tired, Sorry," Ino apologized. "Mind talking is draining."

"Go take a break then," Tsunade ordered. "Your dad can spare you for a few hours."

"Okay then." She gave Shikamaru an apologetic smile. She may have done stuff she wasn't supposed to, but hey, it had been for a good cause. And who could turn down a personal order from the Hokage? Sure beat writing down gruesome numbers for a while, anyways.

* * *

Things were actually going well.

After almost two days of fighting, Tenten was limping on one foot, but not seriously enough to require medical attention, had counted about twenty-four kills, and had not seen anyone she knew die. Granted, that was mostly because she had spent her time surrounded by other members of combat unit C, aka people who had careers and weren't all that likely to die in the first place, but hey. A plus was a plus.

She was fighting a relatively fair fight on a clearing, while some other combat units had been lured into the forests or were fighting on the stairs down to the hide-out, but since the situation there had been resolved, this was where most of the fighting was happening.

She was currently fighting using two spears she had summoned; she liked using spears and staffs, especially on close quarters and when under attack by several opponents at once. They gave her leverage and made her hard to hit. Well, one spear did that. While she was strong enough to wield one with each hand, using two at once also slowed her down immensely, but right now, enough people had her back to make that okay. And the second spear did a great job in preventing her from putting pressure on her injured leg.

She jammed the butt of her right spear into the eye of the guy who'd just lunged at her, quite clumsily actually, and flung him into another enemy, currently engaged in a fight with Kiba's dog whose name she couldn't recall at the moment. The other spear was being stabbed through a third opponent who'd been about to attack Neji, not that he needed the protection. Then she had to dodge a blast of water being shot into her direction, by jumping up as high in the air as one leg aided by a spear would take her, identified the person who had fired the blast, and threw her spear at them, hitting them right through the chest. Awesome.

It sucked about the lack of support, but taking out targets able to shoot elemental stuff at them took priority. She broke her fall by jamming the remaining spear into the ground, and kicked an enemy in the face with her good leg while dangling from it. But when she was on the ground again, she had trouble getting the spear out of the ground, which had been trodden muddy by the opposing forces during the hours of battle; a state which was not helped much by being subjected to blasts of water. She dodged one attack from the left by quickly drawing a kunai and managing to hit an artery on the opponent's attack arm, but was tackled from the right and fell into the mud, luckily without sustaining any wounds, as her opponent was being torn to shreds by Akamaru, whose name had suddenly returned to her, while the guy still on top of her.

"Good dog," she praised the dog when she'd gotten up on her feet again. "But next time, not on top of me, please."

"Stop complaining and get medical attention." Somehow Neji had made his way to her. Seconds after having said this, he was busy warding them from five attackers at once; 360 degree coverage will do that.

"But I'm okay!" She claimed, quickly summoned another spear while Neji was guarding her, before burrowing it in one of the guys almost out of his perimeter. "Seriously, I am. Foot hurts a little, but I'll walk it off."

Neji had however already moved on to another group of opponents who were getting dangerously close to where Hinata was fighting. Well, he couldn't be that concerned about her then and rightfully so. It's not like she was some stupid, over-eager hot head, didn't know her limits or desperately had something to prove here. Except for maybe that even people from her kind of backgrounds could fight in combat units with letters instead of numbers without being a hindrance, or something. Though all things considered, being a hindrance at this point meant you had an uncontrollable urge to perform large area attacks that took down as many of your comrades as they did enemies. But those people were put elsewhere.

She hurried over to where someone she vaguely recognized from the academy graduate class above her was being swarmed on. Well, as swarmed on as you could be at this point where the enemy lines had thinned considerably. Still, he didn't look like he could fend off seven people for too long, so she thrust her spear into one of them and used the momentum to kick the one next to him straight into the face with both feet. Ouch. Feet did not like that.

When she was back on the ground, or rather her opponents face was, a sharp pain rushed through her; she'd failed to dodge a cut by one of the swarming ninjas around her, and now had a nasty gash across her side. Dammit.

She slammed the butt of her spear backwards blindly, hitting the one who had cut her side right in the stomach, judging by how giving the target was. Turning around, she also used the sharp and to stab him into the ground, before quickly crouching down to dodge a sword coming in from her left. She quickly kicked her attacker against the ankle, ouch, making him fall before getting back up herself. Again, her spear failed to come out of the ground, and well, the person on it, in time, so she had to kick the sword fighter's nose in before being armed again.

The cut on her side was bleeding enough to annoy her. Maybe it _was_ time to see the medics... She could check up on Penghe and Xinlu while she was there, too. See how they were doing on their first medical employment.

* * *

Sakura was awoken by screams and explosions. And Ino's voice in her head.

_Get up, it's urgent, your special mission is starting now, whatever that means._

She was up on her feet and dragging Naruto with her in close to no time. Their mission scroll had specified they were supposed to get to the command center immediately upon notification. The command center was obviously another tent, where they were expected by Shikamaru's dad and Kakashi, both looking grim and like they hadn't slept since they'd gotten there.

"What the hell is going on?" Naruto demanded, effectively shouting over the battle noises outside which seemed to have quadrupled in the last few minutes.

"Orochimaru has entered the battle," Kakashi explained. "We're about to break through the ranks defending the entrance, Tsunade and Jiraiya are distracting him. When we do, you two get in there and find Sasuke."

"Okay," Naruto seemed unsure for the first time. "So how do we do that?"

"He's down there somewhere," Shikamaru's dad said. "The place is not too big, so you can't get lost too badly. Chances are, he's on his way up to joining the fray as well. You remember your instructions?"

"Yes," Sakura said before Naruto could try and argue them again.

"Then leave. Immediately."

The entrance to the hide-out had been where the fighting was thickest from the beginning. Thus, it was the place with the most corpses lying around, most of them enemy ninjas, and where the ground was the most blood-soaked.

Sakura had gotten used to corpses and blood in her time as Tsunade's apprentice. Just not in that amount. And Naruto next to her looked positively sick.

They caught glimpses of the big battle of this siege in the background; a giant snake, a giant toad and a giant snail fighting each other and occasionally shooting stuff they themselves shouldn't have been able to. Sakura had to force herself not to pay too much attention to what was going on there. That wasn't her fight.

Her fight hadn't even started yet.

The fighting around the entrance was still going on, though it had calmed down significantly since the big battle had begun; you didn't see something like that every day. Still, the Oto-Nins were as ferociously defending this part of their home as ever, but seemed to be at the end of their numbers. Sakura and Naruto had clear instructions to wait for an opening and then sneak inside as unseen as possible; neither the Oto-Nins nor their own shinobi were supposed to know what they were doing, this mission being top-secret and all. Sakura didn't quite understand the reason for that, since anyone with two brain cells to rub together could probably figure out that they would try getting Sasuke-kun back if they could when they just so happened to be in his vicinity, but no matter.

Problem was, deciding what was an opening and what wasn't proved to be kinda hard. Sure, there were plenty of openings or unprotected spots where might have been able to slip through, but definitely not completely unnoticed; her hair kind of drew attention to it even at dusk right now, and Naruto was about as subtle as a wrecking ball. And that was on a good day.

Being able to do something more than just break genjutsus would have come in handy at this point, Sakura mused, but she'd never tried doing something like that and this didn't strike her as the best moment to try.

"I think we have to join the fighting," Naruto whispered after waiting and watching for a good ten minutes. "I mean, if we do, and get rid of all the Oto-Nins, then we can tell the Konoha people to go join the big battle over there and go in, right?"

"I'm not sure they'd let us in," Sakura argued. "It's not like we can pull rank or tell them about our orders, and they'd definitely want to have a look at the hide-out themselves. And the more people go in, the more of a warning whoever's still down there will have... And how do we even know Sasuke-kun's still here? They could have just taken him away..."

"Don't start thinking that," Naruto reprimanded her. "He's definitely down there, and we're definitely gonna get him, don't ever start doubting that or we have lost already."

"Alright," Sakura agreed reluctantly. Naruto might have been able to work miracles with his pep talks on most people, and she had to admit from a motivational standpoint he was doing a pretty good job, but she'd had to rely on her own wits more than on his idealism for almost two years now and had gotten better results in total, so she'd keep doubting, just to be careful. "We just need a distraction. Any ideas?"

"My Kage Bunshin can be a distraction," Naruto suggested. "And, like, start a fight somewhere else that everybody will pay attention to, or something."

"I don't think they're going to fall for that," Sakura assumed. "But Kage Bunshin are a good idea... Just... Make them join the fight. We need a lot of them. And then I'll use a Henge to look like one of your Bunshin as well, and while everything's full of... you, essentially, we can slip inside unnoticed, because who cares if there's two more or less of you around."

"This sounds so weird." Naruto shuddered. "But yeah, sounds like it could work."

And to Sakura's immense surprise, it worked about as well as it could have; the Narutos completely overwhelmed the enemies, and once they were... Done, none of the Konoha shinobi had any further instructions regarding the base, so the Naruto clones managed to convince them to report back to Kakashi, their commanding officer, who was obviously in on the whole thing, and nobody was any wiser as to where some of the Narutos might have gone.

It was almost comical how well the easiest plans worked out at times. If she'd felt like laughing. Which she very decidedly didn't.

The hide-out was enormous. She'd seen another one before, on a brief mission, the one that was actually located where the maps claimed Oto no Kuni was, and that one had been pretty big underground, but this one was practically a maze.

"How are we supposed to find anything here?" Naruto asked after they had taken a few turns and not even encountered a rat.

"So I guess you can't sense chakra, either," Sakura concluded. "Uhm... Put our left hands to the wall and see where it takes us?"

"Wouldn't that just make us walk all over the place until we find the exit?" Naruto had apparently briefly paid attention to that lesson.

"Or anything else, and we know we don't miss anything," Sakura elaborated.

"I don't think we have time for that." He looked around frantically. "Geez, I can't even hear people anywhere! Where did they put their wounded? Shouldn't they be close to the entrance?"

"Be glad that they're not," Sakura said darkly. "Where there are wounded, there are medics attending to them. And I really don't feel like running into Oto's head of healing right now."

"You mean that creep Kabuto?" Naruto shuddered. "Yeah, no kidding. Let's just move."

So they moved. A lot. Took a few more turns, ended up at the same place, and not progressing in the slightest. Sakura then suggested following the wind, but not going to where it was coming from, but to where it was headed the most, since that might suggest the deepest way down into this hide-out, though she wasn't too sure about this herself. Neither the academy nor her extracurricular reading had ever taught her how to navigate mazes beyond getting out of them.

* * *

When Tenten returned from her brief healing session, the battle in the clearing had calmed down significantly. There were only a few enemies left, who had drawn back into some kind of formation, but that wouldn't last long, judging by the relentless onslaught by the Konoha forces. Nothing much she could do at this point...

And then the giant snake happened.

Just... poof! And there it was, not too far from their clearing, rising up over the tree tops, with maybe a person on top of it, and for a moment, everyone just stopped and stared.

That stop and stare moment caused five more casualties on their side in under three minutes, as the remaining Oto Nins were just a little more used to this occurrence. However, the battle was finished shortly after this, as the horrified Konoha nins hit back with added ferocity.

Not that it did them much good.

The giant's snake's tail whipped through the forest surrounding them, uprooting trees as it went, and finally smashing through the bulk of the offensive, coming towards her way faster than should have been possible for something this massive.

Tenten did the only sensible thing; running up a tree to her back, so when the tail hit, she could jump from there and come out far above it. The landing wouldn't be nice, but it sure beat being crushed to death by a giant purple tail.

Which would have worked out greatly, had the tail not _come back_, again not hitting her, but the airwaves caused by it force were still strong enough to knock her into the next tree. She wasn't conscious anymore when she hit the floor. Ouch.

* * *

In two weeks, Sakura and Naruto will do some dungeon crawling, Tenten gets to evaluate nurses, Sasuke will show his face. There will be vomit, mud wrestling and whipping and none of it will be sexy in the slightest. Hope to see you then!


	3. Not Today

03. Not Today

"Tenten-san, are you okay?"

She didn't feel okay at all. Somehow, everything hurt, and she was dizzy and what the hell was even going on...

Opening her eyes, she was greeted with ginormous dark and concerned eyes, framed by equally ginormous eyebrows which could only belong to her other teammate.

"Hey, Lee-kun..." She greeted him, smiling lazily, before suddenly keeling over and throwing up, thankfully not hitting anyone, herself included.

"Yes, she seems fine," a completely unconcerned, slightly sneering voice contributed that could only belong to Neji. Lee was meanwhile being a good friend and held back the strands of her hair that had come loose, while patting her back and cooing soothing words at her. If she ever got seriously ill, she'd demand him as her nurse. He even let her take a sip from his water skin once she was done!

"So what's going on now?" She asked, leaning back against her tree and watching funny patterns dance in front of her eyes. "Why do you have time to babysit me? Not that I don't appreciate it, I just thought there'd be more going on right now..."

"Gai-sensei's order," Neji explained stoically, without missing a beat.

"I feel so loved," she retorted, rolling her eyes. Ouch, very bad idea.

"And because we're your team mates and we care about you!" Lee hastily added.

"It's okay, Lee," she managed a slight laugh. "So what happened to the war? And the snake. I hate that snake."

"The snake is currently occupied with Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama and their respective summons," Neji explained. "Far enough from the military encampment as to not cause any more collateral damage. We're regrouping for a possible sneak attack on Orochimaru and the snake, but there have been no further orders."

"Alright." Tenten tried to get back on her feet, but was a little too fast, apparently, as the pretty patterns took over her head entirely, and she kind of lost track of where the ground was, until her head hit what smelled like Neji's shoulder, and Lee caught her by wrapping his arms around her middle.

For an uninvolved bystander, the scene must have looked hilarious.

"You seem to have a concussion," Neji noted, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, reeeaaaally?" Tenten replied, leaning into Lee's support.

"We need to get you to the healing tents!" Lee concluded and hoisted her up, bridal style, before hurrying off. She could practically feel Neji's smirk burning into the back of her head.

Oh, well. There were worse ways to get swept off your feet.

* * *

Sakura had a hard time telling how long she and Naruto had been wandering around aimlessly. Though after some time, they actually did run into an Oto Nin, wearing the standard uniform, hiding everything but the eyes grey leo print. They overwhelmed them before even thinking about it, but he bit off his own tongue and choked on his own blood before they could interrogate him.

Naruto stared at the corpse, looking crestfallen.

"Why... Why did he do that?" He asked after a while.

"Loyalty," Sakura explained. "It's what we're all supposed to do before the enemy can torture information out of us."

"But... We're the good guys..." Naruto frowned. "Aren't we?"

"Not for the Oto Nins," Sakura answered. It hurt a lot to be the one to break this to Naruto, but there was no helping it at this point. "To them, we're just destroying their home and out to kill their leader."

"But... I would have taken him along!" Naruto argued. "He could have helped us, and then we'd have taken him to Konoha with us, and... Things would be better..."

Sakura briefly wondered why he only worried about that now; he'd been fighting and most likely killing enemy ninjas for the better part of two days now. Though those were probably conceived as more of a threat, since they were also attacking his friends at the time, so... Maybe it made sense for him to only worry about this now. And this place was most likely dragging him down as much as her, just that she had always been a little more aware of the broader context of what they were doing.

Or maybe this one isolated incident had just been the last straw.

"Well, I know you prefer talking to you opponents over killing them," she carefully tried to console him. "And you're pretty damn good at it. And don't get me wrong, I'd infinitely prefer that over violence, as well, I'm just not as talented. But you need to understand that not everybody will want to listen to what you have to say."

"Then I'll have to _make_ them listen," Naruto concluded, deeply determined again. Sakura was relieved.

"That's the spirit," she encouraged him. "Let's move on, there might be other people where he came from."

"So here you are," a gruff, bored sounding voice sort of interrupted them, making them jump. The way they had come from was Pakkun, the smallest of Kakashi's dogs, looking quite annoyed with everything. "Figured you'd get yourselves lost."

* * *

Her little brother Penghe was definitely not someone Tenten would request as a nurse should she ever need one. She realized that he was new to this and everything was rushed and confusing, but really? No need to be that stressed out over something as minor as a concussion.

"Come on, I bet you healed crazier stuff today," she tried to encourage him, as he was almost too afraid to apply any pressure to her head, even though at least a little bit of that was needed to get any kind of healing done, as far as she knew.

"I don't like working with heads," he explained. "One wrong move, one bad chakra wave, and you brain is mush."

"Thanks for telling me that." She tried not to laugh. Her little brother had always been a little jumpy with responsibility. "I hope every patient gets this much honesty from you."

"Shut up." He seemed flustered now. He was not even a whole year younger than her and so had just a little less experience. Then again, he'd only been training as a medic nin for about nine months now, when Tsunade had started picking up system ninjas with good chakra control for her program, so he was probably doing quite well. Who was she to judge.

She sensed what was coming even before she heard it. Not sure how, but somehow, there always was a certain... Tension building immediately before something bad happened. Bad in this case meant the sudden outburst of renewed combat noises from outside the tent, screams that were quickly muffled, and the sudden presence of way more people than there had been before.

"We're under attack!" Came the announcement for anyone who may have actually been wearing ear plugs due to suicidal tendencies. If it was loud enough to get through those, granted. She wouldn't know; she'd never worn any.

"Am I good to go?" She formally asked her brother, in a tone that left no doubt that a) she wasn't really asking and b) his answer wouldn't matter anyways.

"Yes, you are," he said, sounding terrified. She couldn't blame him; ambushes were bad when you got surprised by about ten people as a four people cell. Ambushes on a scale of hundreds, as it sounded like, were about infinitely worse.

She jumped to her feet, this time with neither her feet nor her head in particular pain, grabbed her scrolls from beside her and left the medical tent in a hurry, with about every other ninja who'd been receiving treatment right now and was still able to walk and hold a weapon. Outside, she was greeted by Gai-sensei, who was acting as a commanding officer under Kakashi and currently yelling out his instructions.

"Units B and C to the south, Two to the west and Three to the east!" He bellowed, looking more serious than she'd ever seen him in a combat situation. "Move, people, but do not despair! Our youthful spirits will prevail!"

...Or maybe not. Whatever worked for him.

Truth be told, there was no actual way to really spread out the combat units at this point; the ambush had come in from all directions, just that the north was still occupied by giant animals wrecking up the forest and taking quick care of any additional enemy. But since most of the Konoha forces had been resting, the circle drawn around them by the new assailants was so small, actually defining directions was nearly impossible.

Tenten soon found herself battling quite a few new enemies on the same clearing she'd been fighting on earlier; just that this time, the enemies seemed to be coming from Kusa, judging by what she saw of their forehead protectors during battle. Which wasn't too much, all things considered; the clearing was positively crowded, and from what she gathered, there were snipers in the surrounding forests targeting them as well. It seemed that all of Kusa had found its way here, but why?

Last thing she'd hear of Kusa was that they were actually more on the diplomatic end of things, and they had been on sort of friendly terms with Konoha the last few years... So what the hell was even going on?

* * *

They followed Pakkun, who was navigating them sure-footed through all forks and crossroads for about twenty minutes, this place was seriously gigantic, before the little dog froze on the spot.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, after almost tripping over the little dog.

"Something smells like it's burning," the pug answered, sounding even more displeased than usually. "Smells like human."

Naruto and Sakura exchanged a disgusted glance.

"Does it smell like Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, though that wasn't very likely. Sasuke-kun was a fire user; surely he wouldn't let himself get burned.

"Not... Really." Pakkun sniffed the air noisily. "Familiar, but not like that Uchiha boy. Meh, what's burning probably can't kill you, so let's just move on."

And true enough, a few more corridors down, another corpse was lying on the ground. It was also on fire. The fire was black.

"What the hell..." Naruto muttered confused and bent down, careful avoiding the strangely swirly black flames. "Is that... Is that Kabuto?"

"Let's hope so..." Sakura bent down beside him. It seemed as if the burning flesh was... growing back under the flames, only to be burnt off again. "Do we know anyone else down here who can regenerate himself?"

"I don't think we know anyone down here besides this guy and Sasuke," Naruto countered.

"Fair enough," Sakura admitted. "Do we know anyone who burns people with black flames?"

"Huh..." Naruto seemed lost in thought for a moment. "I think I do... Like, I've seen flames like those before... I just... Nah, I don't remember anymore. Probably wasn't important."

Sakura was about to point out that black flames at some ominous point in his past re-appearing right now, down here, during this critical mission probably were quite important, but caught herself when she saw his worried expression. Right. There was no use in getting Naruto's spirit down right now. In fact, that would be completely counterproductive. She knew full-well that their success in getting Sasuke-kun back depended entirely on him.

"Would you move on sometime soon?" Pakkun had already continued through the maze. "It's not far now!"

And sure enough, only three turns and four hallways later, they came to the entrance of an illuminated hall, and there were voices coming from the hall. Sakura motioned for Naruto to at all costs remain quiet and stay where he was; simply rushing in there could ruin every chance they had of ever even finding Sasuke down here. So they slowly, as silently as they could, approached the entrance, trying to stay out of view.

"It seems safe to say that Kabuto-sama isn't coming back," someone in the room said. "It's been an hour."

"Are there any news from the surface at all?" This sounded like the person in charge at the moment.

"None," a third person answered. "We must assume the worst."

"But had the defenses been breached, wouldn't they have stormed down here?" A fourth voice asked.

"Orochimaru-sama is out there fighting," the person apparently in command reminded them. "They probably need to concentrate their forces on that... Nevertheless, we need to escort you out of here, Sasuke-sama."

The name sent shivers down her spine. So Sasuke-kun was here, after all, just a few feet away, so, so close... She almost made a sound, could hardly keep her feet on the ground, so strong was the urge to just run in there... But then she saw Naruto, struggling with the same urges, and her senses returned to her. Storming in there now would not be any better than it had been a few seconds ago, so she motioned frantically for Naruto to stay where he was. As hard as it was for both of them.

"I don't need an escort."

Sakura stifled a gasp. Now she _really _had to force herself to stay calm. Just knowing he was there was _nothing _compared to what his voice did to her. It was a little deeper, a little rougher than she remembered, and slightly hoarse, but still... This was Sasuke-kun talking. And she was acting unprofessionally. Dammit, she'd wanted to stop doing that.

From the other side of the entrance, Naruto shot her a glance, eyebrows mockingly raised. She rolled her eyes to hide her embarrassment and waved dismissively. Naruto grinned.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke-sama, but we have strict orders..."

"I don't follow your orders."

Now Naruto had to stifle a laugh. Sakura had had to, as well – she just wasn't as obvious about it. Sasuke-kun had never been easy to handle, and the way the commanding officer was acting like a doormat around him wasn't helping in the slightest.

"But we're here to protect you!" These people really didn't know how to talk to him. It was hilarious.

"I can take care of myself," Sasuke-kun informed them. "Or I wouldn't be here anymore."

"Yes, we know that, but you shouldn't have to!" This was a new voice. "Our orders are to keep you out of sight, and the defenses may be breached any minute! The special units have already left; you _need_ to get out of here before Konoha people find you!"

"I don't _need_ to do anything." His bluntness made several people in the room gasp. "There are already Konoha people in here, at the door, and I don't feel like running."

It took a while for these words to register, then Sakura realized he was talking about them. So their efforts to keep from laughing (or gasping, and maybe a little swooning, just a tiny little bit) hadn't been too successful.

"We have infiltrators?!" Thankfully, the other people in the room were even slower on the uptake. "Where? Show yourselves!"

With a shrug, Sakura signaled Naruto that disobeying the order probably wouldn't make much sense, so they entered the hall.

It was the biggest one they'd encountered so far; the walls lined with torches, and two big columns supporting the ceiling. Also in the room were ten Oto Nin, all in the regular attire but with a few strands of colorful hair showing here and there, and... Sasuke-kun. Of course. Who was now looking at them displeased.

"On the other hand, I don't feel like listening to them, either." He then announced to the still stunned Oto Nins, who were probably trying to figure out how they could have missed the intruders all this time. All of two minutes, maybe. "So do what you will."

With these words, he turned and left through a back entrance on the opposite side of the hall. He _left_. Oh no. Not happening.

"After him!" Sakura yelled, and Naruto bolted, running past her towards where Sasuke-kun just had been, had been _so close_, but when she tried to follow, the Oto Nins awakened from their stupor and started attacking. She shook off the first two who lunged at her, dropping and rolling to make them crash into each other successfully, and jumping back on her feet to tackle another one who was trying to attack Naruto from the back.

They both went down to the floor, Sakura kicking him repeatedly so he stayed down, and when she came up again, Naruto had left, too. Good. So it fell to her to guard the door to keep her boys uninterrupted.

There were nine Oto Nins left standing, two of them standing again, and one of them holding a profusely bleeding ankle. So Pakkun had been able to at least cause some damage before vanishing. So it was only her.

And nine Oto Nins.

She did not like these odds.

* * *

Tenten couldn't see. It had gotten dark, and it was raining, and her bangs were in her eyes half of the time, and everything was wet and nasty. From what she heard, despite the overwhelming numbers of the Kusa ambushers, they were somehow _winning_, or at least here they were, but she couldn't tell for sure. She had also completely lost track of how long she'd been doing this and how many people she had killed or knocked out or anything. It all had become monotonous in a way; slash, slash, kill, dodge, slash some more, ouch.

At some point, she had received a shallow cut down her right leg, which she hadn't even noticed until it dried enough to make her pants sticky, and hurt when she moved. Not enough to make her stop, though; these bastards had dared attacking them when they were almost done here and mostly resting, how dare they?

(Yes, they had attacked Oto without a warning too, as far as she knew, what's your point?)

Sometimes she was distantly aware of knowing someone who was fighting beside her. That was good; that way she knew her team mates weren't dead. Not that she expected them to be – her own odds were much worse. Slash, dodge, dodge some more, kick off feet, and lunge. More blood on her.

The only way they were able to tell Konoha ninjas apart from Kusa ninjas was that the Konoha people were generally bloodier and dirtier since they had been doing this for way longer. But the rain had transformed the clearing, where the ground had already been trodden soft by the previous battle with the Oto Nins and people splashing around with water jets, into something more like a swamp, so Kusa Nins got just as dirty as the Konoha Nins in no time.

Dodge, roll, ew mud, slash, slash, oh, good sword, get up, slash. If this went on for much longer, they'd all be in serious danger of drowning in mud. And blood. That, too.

Something knocked her over again, making her meet the mud once more. At least she convinced herself that she was imagining the metallic taste it left in her mouth. Maybe she'd bitten her tongue a little. Reflexively, she dodged the incoming attack by turning around and blocking it with her sword, knocking the Kunai right out of her opponent's hand. Clumsy, really. Why hadn't he thrown it? She tried jumping back to her feet as she had done countless times today already, but the mud wouldn't let her. Instead she just splashed some of it, giving her the idea to kick more mud into her opponent's eyes before he could draw another Kunai or perform some sort of jutsu.

The small moment of confusion gave her enough time to draw her legs under her so she could get up the slower and less impressive way, but at least she was on her feet again. That became harder the more often she fell down, considering how soaked with mud (and nothing else) her clothes were at this point. Everyone around would have pneumonia in the morning, she could tell. Well, not her opponent, she amended, as she jammed her new sword sideways through his chest, unsure if she'd hit the heart, but she definitely pierced a lung, and that was enough to be sure this bastard wasn't getting up again.

Wiping the hair out of her eyes and smearing her face with totally-just-mud in the process, she had a brief moment of quiet to look around. Fighting was still going on everywhere around here, but someone had apparently taken care of the snipers. She could also still make out the silhouette of a giant snake and a giant toad battling. Huh. Where did the slug go?

She shivered. There was a roar. A deep, weird roar coming from the very ground, uhm, mud she was standing on, er, in. Then there was a weird vibration in that very same puddle of mud, shaking her to her core... What the hell?

When she heard the first crack, Tenten knew she should have gotten out of there, but her feet were deep in the mud and she didn't react quick enough to pull them out in time, before suddenly, the ground somehow... _Collapsed_.

There were screams, so many screams all around, piercing her ears even worse than the groaning and roaring and rumbling of the ground did, as she... Slid down instead of fell, trying to hold on the ground behind her, or was it above her now? Hand full of chakra, she crawled upwards, trying, trying to escape whatever was going on here, and coming out on top of... a part of that chunk of ground that was _sinking_ for some reason. And weirdly dry. Dry was good. She could stay on dry.

Then her chunk broke off, and she fell.

She caught hold of other chunks, left and right, oblivious to the people falling and being buried alongside her, just trying to get to somewhere that wasn't moving right now, her hands slipping off the muddy parts and the parts getting wet from the rain and whatever else. She couldn't see where she was going, just went by the sounds and the smell, and it seemed like she had made it, at least almost, when something heavy fell on her hips and pinned her in place. Ouch.

Then something else hit her head, and the world got even darker.

* * *

There had been days when Sakura had cursed Tsunade for focusing a large part of her training on nothing but dodging. Today was not one of these days.

Something told her that facing nine different people whose abilities she knew nothing about in a vast room like this with the objective to keep all of them from going through one tiny door was kind of a flawed plan. Fortunately, nobody had informed these goons about that, who were all too eager to attack her at once. Maybe sort of sneaking up on them had wounded their pride. Maybe they had to let out all the pent up aggression caused by Sasuke-kun disrespecting them.

Either way, it was working out for her. If you could call being attacked by nine people at once working out. Which... In a way you could. Wow.

If Tsunade could see her now, dodging and evading punches, kicks, weapons and _were those claws_ from all sides while guarding a door and making them all punch, kick, slice and claw at each other in the process, she would have been very proud. Probably proud enough to not have her take any dodging lessons for the rest of the week...

Her only problem was that while she could keep dodging uncoordinated attacks for a long time, she couldn't build up momentum to actually finish someone off on these close quarters; not without risking someone slipping past her and being a hindrance to Naruto, and something told her he didn't need any of those right now. Also, what happened if these people started coordinating? And was that _another _pair of claws?

She narrowly evaded what clearly was a pair of claws attached to weirdly brown-purplish arms. Oh god. She'd heard of this. That was what the cursed seal did to you if you moved past the black swirls and purple glow she'd seen on Sasuke-kun. She'd heard all the horror stories from mostly Kiba and Shikamaru and sometimes Chouji about what kinds of things these people were capable of once they activated it. _Oh god._

Luckily for her, activating the Juin also made her opponents bulkier, giving her the opportunity to build up enough momentum to kick someone hard enough to break his shin. Two down, eight more to go. Five of them now with unhealthy looking skin and way too much hair. Oh god.

Another claw lunged at her; she ducked and drove a Kunai straight up a not-yet transformed abdomen, blood splashing in her face, seven more to go. Six of them transformed.

Seizing the opportunity, she flung the gutted body at one of the transformed people next to the last untransformed one, giving her a clear shot. She first kicked him in the stomach to make him bend over, then brought her elbow down his neck, hearing a satisfying crack. Four down, six purple-brown abominations to go.

Her odds hadn't improved much, all things considered.

A few kicks told her all she needed to know about these Juin people; she wouldn't be able to take them down, immense physical strength be damned. These people's skin was made out of rock, if rock was more flexible and less easy to shatter. She had to rely on something else than her strength... Well, for the second time today, being able to perform Genjutsus instead of breaking them would have been nice.

A claw grazed her shoulder, sending a sharp pain through her arm, as she had tried dodging three attacks at once and missed a fourth. Dammit. At least nothing important had been cut. And at least they seemed less interested at chasing down Naruto and more interested in taking her down first, giving her more room to maneuver in more distance to the door. Okay. That was good.

Then someone grew a thorny whip from his arm, catching her by surprise and creating a significant gash across her own abdomen.

The pain almost made her pass out then and there, but she had enough of a mind to evade the next lash and start healing herself a little; it was bothering her too much to keep her focus. Notably, at the second she was clear of the whip, someone's spiky knee was jammed into her spine, luckily not breaking anything. Yet. And then the whip hit her square across the other arm as she was cowering on the ground, still healing. Then the laughter and the kicking started. Oh god.

She had to come up with something _quick _or all they'd ever find of her was a kicked-to death, whipped up corpse with battle torn clothing from the thorns, and she had imagined a slightly more dignified way to go.

She managed to keep evading the whip some more, as the kicks did significantly less damage. Maybe crack a rib or two. Then the room was shaken from an impact further down the corridor, and a bone-shattering scream.

Oh god.

That was Naruto.

Fortunately, she was not the only one whose bones where chilled by this; her assailants were also briefly thrown off track, giving her time to slip through their legs and get up on the other side. Luckily, they were focused on her again immediately, instead of now running towards the fighting noises luckily still emitting from further down. Okay. That was good. Neither of them were dead yet.

She had to get out of here _now_, and somehow take down all these abominations first, or she would be done for, and soon... But...

Sakura looked around the room frantically to figure out a way to get that done. Hm... There were columns holding up the ceiling here... But not in the tunnels... So most likely, breaking them would make the ceiling come down, but not cause a total cave in. And even if it did, did she have any better options?

The answer lashed her across the legs almost immediately after thinking that. She bit back a cry of pain and instead drew her tanto and managed to catch the whip, pinning it to the ground. Hearing that bastard cry out in pain was the most satisfying sound yet.

Now she had to figure out a way to make them all come as close to the center of the room as possible, for maximum impact. Immobilizing them first would be a plus...

She drew one of her poisoned Kunais and sliced it up the whip, hoping it was connected to the bloodstream of her opponent, before running towards the whole bunch again. This time, she didn't care much about evading anything at first, just making sure she sliced everyone with her kunai at least once, then twice, blocking out the pain as well as she could. There were more important things going on.

She had to get each of them three times, switching Kunais for a higher dosage of poison per slash, before the paralysis kicked in. With regular humans, one slash usually took them out cold. She was starting to get the appeal of this kind of power, even if it did make you look incredibly creepy. And forget your actual target. Oh well.

In the end, their movements got sloppy, and then stopped completely. With a normal human, that would last up to an hour. With this bunch, she probably had about ten minutes max.

Even though it wouldn't break anything, kicking them still sent them flying if they couldn't block, as she had hoped, since it made getting the six Juin users into the middle of the room so much easier. When they were all assorted somewhere between the columns, the real fun began. Sakura ran towards the first column, up to the ceiling and gave it an inquisitive punch. It crumbled a tiny little bit, and that was close to a column. Okay. She ran along the ceiling, up to the middle between the columns, and slightly, just enough to make a little dust come down through tiny cracks, punched it once more. Perfect.

Under her, the Juin users were starting to shiver. Damn, that meant their paralysis was already weakening. She needed to get her time frames straight. No matter; Sakura ran along the ceiling to the second column, the one farther away from the door she needed to go through to get to Naruto and Sasuke-kun, and started kicking it down as she went, only slightly; she still had to make it back through the room, after all. Dirt was steadily trickling down from the ceiling now, the column ached. She paid it no mind. Only when she reached the other column did she finally use her whole strength to completely destroy it right at the bottom.

Nothing happened.

Some of her opponents were slowly crawling back towards her, or maybe towards the entrance where they would be save if something did happen, so she did the sensible thing; run for it. When she had almost passed the room, an earsplitting shattering sound signified the breaking of the second column, and with a deep groan that shook her to her core, the ceiling came down, first slowly, with a steady trickle of dirt raining down into the room, then faster and faster, crumbling to large pieces of debris, burrowing the six Juin users underneath them, until the entire room was filled with stone and dust and a surprising amount of mud, judging from the smell.

Sakura couldn't tell for sure; she was cowering in the next corridor, halfway to another fork in the road, covering her ears from the noise and shielding her face from the dust and debris coming her way. When the noise had died down, and she could be reasonably sure that nothing else would cave in, she got up again, staring at the purple-brownish arm transformed into a whip reaching out of the pile of debris that had formerly been the hall, and whose owner she had just crushed to death.

Breathing heavily, bleeding out of several cuts and gashes and whatever it was the claws and kicks had done to her, her head dizzy from blood loss and adrenaline, she turned around, facing the fork. Which way had her boys gone? Then she heard sizzling noises a muffled scream coming from one way, and the choice was clear.

How she made it all the way to the next hall, she had no clue. Several times she feared the narrow walls would swallow her whole or come down as well. Two times she staggered so much, she had to hold on to the walls for support. They didn't feel very supportive, especially after what she had just done.

When Sakura finally made it to the gigantic room, lit only by torches as well, the first thing she saw was blood. There was a lot of blood. Then there was Naruto, lying in all the blood. He had a hole in his chest. Her gut clenched. Her breath hitched. She'd have run to him, but she didn't trust her legs.

_No, no, stay calm, the hole is in the right side of the chest. He lives. He's gonna be okay. You can make him okay again._

Then she saw Sasuke-kun. Or rather, the hole he had in his shoulder. At least she presumed it was a hole, since she'd seen what Naruto could do, and she wanted to think he'd at least gotten Sasuke a little.

Blood was squirting through his fingers, as he tried to make his way towards the entrance she was standing in. No good. Blood loss would knock him out soon. With no one around but her, he'd die. Naruto would die first, but Sasuke-kun would, too.

"Out of my way," he… Not quite coughed. He coughed up a lot of blood while saying it, but the actual sound he made was more like… Gurgling. Not good. Lung damaged. Blood in lung. Hard to get out. Not impossible, but it took some time.

Sasuke-kun staggered towards her, as if she was no threat. She probably wasn't. She was figuring out how to heal both of them right now. She really meant no further harm. There was so much blood already.

He was beside her now. She hadn't moved. He really wanted to get away? He wanted to get away. _He wanted to get away_!

Anticipating it about as much as he did, she rammed her fist into his stomach. He keeled over on her arm, throwing up blood and other things she narrowly avoided. But he wasn't getting away.

_Not today_.


	4. A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea

In case nobody noticed, the chapter titles are also song titles. Some of the songs actually relate to what's going on. Others simply have titles that sound neat and kind of fitting. So far it has been mostly the latter. The chapter titles also serve to give you some insight into my questionable taste of music. And subtlety. That, especially.

* * *

[I've Got]** A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea** [That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth]

Somehow, she managed to drag Sasuke's limp body through all the blood towards where Naruto was lying, and even to at least close the hole in his lung in the process. There wasn't that much blood in it. He'd be coughing it up for some time, though. But right now, he wasn't important. He wasn't dying. She propped him up against a wall where she could see him, in case he woke up. She doubted it. Too much blood.

She turned over Naruto. Yes. Hole was on the right side of his chest, he was still alive. Hastily, she cut open his shirt to have better access to the wound, and briefly noticed the seal on his stomach. That was still odd, but she really had better things to do than worry about it. Sasuke hadn't simply pierced his lung; Naruto's entire right lung wing should have collapsed judging by the damage, but it hadn't. In fact, she could feel it healing, slowly, way too slowly, but healing on its own, due to a strange kind of chakra flowing through him.

That was _really_ odd.

It also made her job easier, so she wouldn't complain. This time, she actually made the effort to extract all of the blood from his lungs while healing them, mainly because she didn't have to damage additional tissue to do so. Really, the fact that she could clearly feel Naruto's heart still beating and had been able to detect that his brain was still working was amazing.

And not just because detecting brainwaves usually wasn't her thing.

The one time she had healed Naruto before, just a few hours ago, she hadn't noticed this... Force inside him. Or the strange chakra. Though all things considered, she'd _seen_ it before occasionally... And judging by where it was located, the weird seal definitely had something to do with it.

She had to remind herself that this really wasn't the time and the place to analyze that curiosity. The only thing she had to worry about right now was getting both him and Sasuke out of life threatening condition and somewhere maybe a little more sheltered... Sasuke had been headed to another exit before, so there had to be another one in that direction besides the one she had just blocked by collapsing the hall. So at least they weren't stuck down here... Hopefully.

Naruto's lungs were closed up and working again in what definitely was no time at all considering the damage; she had fixed lungs a few times before, but the damage had always been less severe, and the procedure had taken significantly longer. Well then. It seemed like Naruto was to be her new favorite patient.

He was still bleeding from several cuts and had burns all over, but none of those were any kind of threat to him, especially since the weird healing force inside of him was still going strong, so Sakura returned her attention to Sasuke, whose wounds were less severe all around, but since he lacked Naruto's regenerative abilities, a bigger concern of hers right now.

While Naruto's wounds were mostly cuts and burns, besides the hole in his lung that had most likely been caused by a chidori, Sasuke's damage took the form of bruises and broken bones, a testament to Naruto's fighting style which took more after her own, as long as he kept the rasengan out of it. Which was most likely what had caused the hole in Sasuke's shoulder.

All things considered, Sasuke aiming for a vital area where Naruto hadn't was... disturbing. But neither entirely unexpected nor something she wanted to think about right now.

Instead, she set and healed three ribs of Sasuke's, which had been either broken or at least a little cracked, one of them causing additional damage to his lung, as if that was necessary. She also noticed that his stomach walls were damaged quite a bit, which was probably the result of her own punch, but nothing she couldn't heal as well.

However, Sasuke's body was way worse at dealing with this damage than Naruto's; she could already sense a fever settling in, so it would be a good while before he was in any shape to run away from them again. Which was a good thing, she supposed.

And at least nobody here was going to die on her watch.

That being out of the way, she moved on to some more practical problems; how to get two unconscious boys to somewhere a little less exposed in this underground maze. Unfortunately, this was not a problem she was trained to deal with. She had no idea where she was, where to go and how to avoid being found. Especially since she had no idea where potential threats could be coming from; and wouldn't it be better to get back to the surface all things considered? According to the... People she'd crushed... The fighting up there was already done, so it should be relatively save... But carrying two unconscious boys who she'd both pretty much brought back from the brink of death just a few minutes ago didn't occur to her as a very good idea. She'd have to wait for at least one of them to wake up first. God dammit, why did Pakkun have to dissolve once the fighting started?

"Sakura-san?"

The quiet voice, barely more than a whisper, made her jump backwards from where Sasuke was sort of sitting, and reach for the tanto that wasn't at her thigh anymore. Luckily, she didn't need it, as on the other side of the hall, in a doorway leading even further into this goddamn hide-out-maze-whatever, stood Hinata, looking as though she might faint from seeing all the blood that was still on the floor.

"Hinata!" She exclaimed, louder than was advisable under the circumstances. "What are you doing here? How did you find us?"

"I... Saw you were in trouble..." Hinata was still fixated on the sea of blood Naruto in particular was lying in. "So I... Well... Wanted to help." She took one tentative step into the room, but flinched when she stepped into the first puddle of blood. "Will... Will they be okay?"

"Oh, yes, I think so," Sakura assured her, immensely relieved she didn't have to deal with this on her own anymore. "And don't worry; neither of them is bleeding out anymore."

"You are," Hinata pointed out. Sakura looked down on herself. Oh, yeah. Right. There were the nasty cuts she'd gotten from the Juin people, a few whip lashes, and one of her ribs was probably cracked, too, but nothing major. She didn't even feel the pain right now, probably because of too much adrenaline.

"Ah, don't worry about me, I'll be fine," she dismissed Hinata. "How far is the exit from here?"

"It takes a while," Hinata approached slowly, eyes still transfixed on the blood surrounding Naruto. "But I wouldn't try to leave right now. We're under attack from Kusa ninjas. And rumor has it Taki is coming for us, as well. They already attacked another division somewhere but were defeated. But most of their strength is supposed to be coming here."

"Oh god..." Sakura tried doing the math in her head, but her head was too fuzzy for numbers right now. "That's not good. And we're in no condition to fight our way out... Does anybody know you're here?"

"Not yet..." Hinata started squirming where she was standing. "I'm kind of acting without orders... But I just couldn't... I mean..." She looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

"It's okay, I get it," Sakura tried to comfort her. And really, as little as she knew about Hinata, her behavior around Naruto had always been pretty obvious to her. And never before had she been so thankful for that. "And I'll put in a word with Tsunade for you so you won't get punished. Now, can you help me find a place that's kind of sheltered and where we won't be found immediately if more people find their way in?"

"Uhm..." Hinata activated her bloodline limit and scanned the area for a bit. "There's a hollow wall not too far from here that will fit all of us. Looks like a very simple opening mechanism, too."

"Awesome." Sakura got back on her feet and wiped her hands on her clothes. Not that it was particularly efficient; her thorough coating of dirt and blood that mostly wasn't hers would have given every medic nin a heart attack under normal circumstances, but those didn't really apply anymore. "So how do we get everyone there without leaving behind too much of a trace to follow?"

In the end, they just carried the boys over as they were, and then sacrificed Hinata's jacket, by far the cleanest garment between the four of them, for wiping the blood stains that followed them. Of course, any half-assedly skilled tracking ninja ever would be able to find them anyways if they just put their mind to it, but she didn't want to make it unnecessarily easy for them. Just for her own peace of mind.

Hinata then insisted on at least bandage up Sakura's wounds, or those that were still bleeding, as the blood loss would get to her eventually. She also made Hinata clean her wounds first, since she didn't intend to court disaster any more than they already were. Then the two of them got busy treating the more minor wounds of the boys, like applying ointments and Band-Aids to Naruto's burns, which were hardly even existent anymore, and keeping Sasuke's fever down.

Sakura couldn't help but admire the silent efficiency Hinata showed once she gave her something to do. Once she'd gotten over all the blood and was quite sure Naruto would be okay (not that this was explicitly said, but Sakura _knew_), she did everything Sakura told her to and did so well. Her bandages weren't half bad, if a little loose at first, and she treated Naruto's burns like a pro. The girl would have made an awesome medic had she not been blessed with about every other set of skills a ninja could ask for. Her attitude would have fit right in. Oh well.

Hinata herself also looked hardly any worse for wear; true, before being used as a blood sponge, her jacket had been torn in places, and the rest of her clothing looked a little worn, but she had no injuries besides a few scratches, nothing to show that she'd been fighting in an all-out war for almost two days by now.

The perks of being high born and talented, it seemed.

They remained silent and waited for something to happen, besides Naruto's snoring showing that he had slipped from unconsciousness to sleep, which was a good sign, and Sasuke occasionally coughing up the blood still stuck in his lungs while burning up with fever, which wasn't.

In the hours that followed, they shared soldier pills and water supplies and the occasional worried look, but spoke no more words. Sakura had never really talked much to Hinata. Well, Hinata didn't talk much, period, but even back in the academy where they'd spent the better part of their days in a room together, they had never interacted much. Or at all. Sakura had been dragged along with Ino being her social butterfly self so they'd never spoken beyond what was necessary for shared assignments, as they didn't exactly share a circle of friends. Most people had been too intimidated by Hinata's last name to actually be friends with her.

And ever since Sakura had been put on a team with Naruto... Well, Hinata wasn't quite as overt in her underlying resentment as, uhm, a lot of other people had been because of her, uhm, other team mate, but again, Sakura just _knew_.

And she was thankful for every second she didn't have to spend down in this maze on her own.

* * *

It took three hours for Naruto to finally wake up.

"Ouch," he complained, even before he opened his eyes, making Hinata, who was sitting across from him, jump with surprise. "Why do I feel dead?"

"Because you should be," Sakura explained, trying to sound strict, but not quite succeeding in keeping the relief out of her voice. "Your right lung wing kind of collapsed because someone stuck his hand through it."

"Hey, Sakura-chan," he greeted her with a lazy grin on his face. "Oh, and Hinata-chan, too. How did you get here?"

"Using her eyes," Sakura explained. "And she saved all of our asses."

"Did we at least get...? Oh, there he is!" Naruto's grin grew even wider spotting Sasuke, making one of the Band-Aids come off his face. Sakura rolled her eyes and reapplied it, not quite as gentle as was proper with a patient who'd almost had his lung collapse a few hours prior, but she figured if that hadn't killed him, she'd never be able to kill him no matter how hard she tried, so what difference did a little rough handling make.

"You seriously need to learn how to dodge close quarter attacks like that, it's embarrassing," she lectured him. He gave a wheezing laugh.

"It's hard to dodge when I'm trying to hit him with a rasengan!" Naruto argued. "I did hit him, didn't I?"

"Yes, in the shoulder." Sakura pointed at the hole in Sasuke's shirt where Naruto had hit him. "You damaged his lung as well, but not nearly as badly as yours. Unfortunately, Sasuke-kun doesn't have you thick-headedness, so he actually needs to recover from heavy injuries." Pointing out that there was a weird, healing chakra force living in his abdomen under a seal in front of Hinata didn't quite strike her as the right thing to do in the situation.

"Serves him right," Naruto said. "Bastard attacked me when I just wanted to talk to him! No manners, I tell you."

"Well, I told you, you need to _make_ people listen first." Sakura had to stifle a laugh, which was quite a bit easier when looking at Hinata, who was looking at her feet in what seemed to be... Hurt? Yeah... Probably that.

"So what are we waiting for?" Naruto asked and tried to get up. "Let's grab the bastard and get out of here! He'll be okay, right?"

"Yes, but you won't if you don't sit down immediately and rest some more!" Sakura snapped at him.

"But I feel fine!" Naruto claimed, completely ignoring the way his knees buckled and how off his balance was, judging by his staggering.

"Th-they're still fighting up there!" Hinata protested. "And right now, y-you're really in no condition t-to make it out there, and Sakura-san isn't, either, so at least waiting out until Sasuke-san regains consciousness, or we receive further notice is the best option we have!" She explained tentatively, looking at her feet.

"Oh." Naruto sat down again, or more like slumped down as his knees gave in. "Okay then." He looked around almost complacently. "So why are we still fighting? Last thing I knew, Oto was kinda done for."

"They were done for," Hinata confirmed. "Only Orochimaru was still fighting, and we had strict orders to stay out of that battle..."

"Aw, I wish I was there!" Naruto interrupted her. "I saw them fight the last time around, it was so awesome! Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Well..." Hinata was almost sinking into the wall behind her under Naruto's expectant gaze. "We were attacked by Kusa ninjas just when we thought it was over. Rumor has it the other squads got ambushed, too. By other minor villages."

"Dammit!" Naruto positively shrank into himself. "And you're sure there's nothing we can do to help?"

"Th-the situation was under control when I... Left," Hinata explained further. "And no, you're really in no shape to fight."

"Ugh, I hate this!" Naruto complained, and kicked the still unconscious Sasuke, who was sitting across from him. "Wake up already!"

"Wrong way of thinking," Sakura warned him. "_You_ should go back to sleep. The more you sleep, the better rested you will be, and the sooner you will be able to fight again."

"Whatever you say." Naruto rolled his eyes, but obediently curled up into a ball to sleep again. "Just make sure we don't lose anyone while I'm out."

"Not on my watch," Sakura assured him.

* * *

Naruto had been asleep again for two hours, and Hinata had taken over keeping watch for Sakura as she dozed off a little as well. Things had been draining for her too, for sure. But then she was tentatively shaken and woke up.

"Uhm..." Hinata seemed quite uncomfortable about something, her Byakugan activated.

"What is it?" Sakura asked, alarmed. "Is someone coming? Enemies?"

"Not really," Hinata glanced aside. "Just... Neji-nii-san, Kiba-kun and Shino-kun are on their way here..."

"To get you?" Sakura guessed. "So you didn't even tell people you were leaving?" Hinata blushed in answer. Sakura rolled her eyes. "Great. This should be entertaining at least."

And sure enough, about ten minutes later she heard a voice through the stone wall that separated their hideout from the main floors of the cave.

"So here we are, once again, potentially risking our lives while chasing this bastard! Is anyone seeing a pattern here?"

"We are chasing after Hinata-sama," another, much more subdued voice answered, sounding significantly more annoyed. "And nobody forced you to accompany us, Inuzuka."

"Also, the next enemy unit is miles away," a third voice, deeper and calmer than the other two, added. "Everything else down here is dead."

"Even worse!" The first voice continued complaining. "That means nobody can swoop in here for a last minute rescue!"

"Which we won't need," the second voice assured him.

"I don't know, man," the first voice continued. "Have you _seen_ the freaky stuff the guys living here came up with?"

"Yes, I have," the second person answered. "I was there, actually, and not in need of a rescue."

"Dude, you just fought a guy with a bunch of spiders!" The first person reminded him rather undignified. "I had to fight two guys sharing a body, and then possessing _my_ body. I had a second head growing out of my shoulder! _Excuse me _for being freaked out!"

"Could you guys keep it down a little bit?" Sakura finally interrupted them, sliding open the wall that kept them hidden between corridors. "We're trying to hide here!"

"I'm just trying to sleep," Naruto contributed, who had woken up once the voices started getting closer. "Don't really care about anyone finding us; we'd kick their asses in a matter of seconds."

"Not with you being out of chakra like that, we wouldn't," Sakura grumbled, gesturing for Kiba, Neji and Shino to join them. Their little hideout was getting rather cozy.

"Are you alright?" Neji immediately asked Hinata, who was sitting in a corner across from Naruto and hadn't said a word ever since she'd announced the boys were coming for them.

"Yes," she answered. "I'm sorry for running off like that."

"Did you at least get the bastard?" Kiba asked and looked around curiously. "Ah, there he is! What happened to him?"

"I knocked him out," Sakura answered flatly, closing the entrance behind them.

"You knocked him out," Kiba repeated, dumbfounded.

"I knocked him out," Sakura repeated, nodding.

"_You_ knocked him out," Kiba repeated, again, not looking any smarter.

"Yes, she made that quite clear," Neji interjected before the exchange could happen a third time.

"And it was awesome!" Naruto added, grinning wildly and making that one Band-Aid come off of his face. "Ooops."

"I got it," Hinata said quietly and reapplied it with somewhat more care than Sakura had earlier.

"Thanks!" Naruto grinned.

Behind her, Sakura felt at least two of the three newcomers tensing. Oh, boy. This was going to be fun.

"…You weren't even conscious for that," she reminded Naruto in an attempt to distract them all.

"Maybe not, but the thought of you knocking him out is awesome enough on its own!" Naruto argued, this time more mindful of his Band-Aids.

"Anyway." Sakura turned around to face the three boys for a quite necessary change of topic. "What's going on out there? I heard Kusa had ambushed us for some reason, and the other divisions were attacked, too. Do you have any news there?"

"Yes," Neji answered. "It seems that the division sent to Oto proper was attacked by a meager force from Shimo Gakure, which they overcame and hurried here to aid us immediately, but ran into a force from Taki that was planning to fight us here as well. The western host was attacked by joined forces from Ame and Ishi Gakure, with another division from Ame later joining Kusa in attacking us here. The western host has since joined us almost completely, while the eastern division from Oto proper and Taki are still battling on Taki's grounds, but should be done there in a few hours."

"Why is everyone attacking us?" Naruto asked bewildered.

"Seems like Orochimaru had friends in high places," Kiba assumed. "Or that's just what we guessed. Weird, considering he stole his freaks from all of them." He threw a nasty glance at Sasuke before settling down between him and Hinata. "So what do we do now?"

"Wait," Sakura decided.

"Are you sure?" Kiba didn't seem convinced and poked Sasuke next to him. "I'd say wrap him up and get out of here as long as he can't fight back. Will save us all a lot of trouble, I tell you."

"He _is _bound, isn't he?" Neji asked, eyeing Sasuke's unconscious body with disapproval. "And you _did_ break his fingers to prevent him from performing any hand seals to break his bonds, didn't you?"

"What I did was knocking him out and then repairing a damaged lung," Sakura answered sharply. "What I did was treat the fever that broke out from sustaining this much damage, and keep him alive. So no, restraining him did not occur to me, especially since even after waking up, he will be in no condition to fight back anyways."

"At least tie up his hands," Neji scoffed. "This is a major security breach. I thought your goal was to get him back to the village. Or does that include giving him a fighting chance once he's subdued?"

"It mainly includes getting him back alive," Sakura shot back. "And tying back his bands when there is still blood in his lung that needs to be coughed up is not advisable in this situation."

Neji rolled his eyes.

"Tie up Uchiha's hands," he then instructed Shino to his left. "And do it front of his body, if tying them up behind is going to be so health endangering."

"Calm down already, he's unconscious!" Naruto protested. "And if Sakura-chan says he doesn't need to be tied up, then that's that. She's the medic here, remember?"

"I am not taking orders from you, in any case," Shino said, completely unaffected. "None of us besides Haruno-san and Uzumaki-san are on an official mission, and you do not outrank me."

"Hey, I'd still do it," Kiba offered his two cents. "I mean, sure, he's unconscious now, but who knows what sort of freaky things Orochimaru has done to his body in the meantime, so he might grow wings and mind-blast us all once he wakes up, injuries be damned!"

"He already does that," Naruto said darkly. "Grow wings, I mean. It's creepy."

"Woah." Kiba shuffled back from Sasuke unconscious body, shoving poor Hinata into the corner. "Actual wings? Like, ones for flying?"

"Kind of?" Naruto scratched his head. "I mean, it got hard to tell if he was flying or jumping, and in that hall, there was not much room for flying anyways..."

"The one that collapsed?" Kiba asked. "Did he do that?"

"Oh!" Naruto just seemed to realize something. "So that's what that noise was!"

"Yeah, there was like, this big cave in, that completely blocked the way here from the main entrance," Kiba explained. "So you don't know what happened there, either?"

"I made the hall collapse," Sakura informed them. "But this really isn't - "

"_You _made the hall collapse?" Kiba asked, staring at her dumbfounded, still half on Hinata's lap, who seemed used to this somehow.

"_Inuzuka_," Neji growled, dangerously annoyed by the turn the conversation had taken. "Not the point."

"We had a point?" Sakura wasn't quite sure if Naruto was playing dumb for Sasuke, or if he actually had been confused by the conversation. Well, as much as it displeased her, she had to admit herself that not tying up Sasuke was a major risk, and she really had no nerve to argue this out with Neji.

"Sort of," she therefore relented, pulled string from her supply pouch and tied Sasuke's hand up in front of him. Then she checked his fever; it was already declining slightly, which was technically a good sign, but also a little... Worrying. No normal human being should have been able to recover so quickly. She kind of accepted it with Naruto, since whatever force she had felt there that was keeping him alive was definitely _not _human, but nothing about Sasuke's chakra and vital functions seemed off, except for his quick recovery rate.

Seeing what she was doing, Neji relaxed visibly, and sat down next to the entrance, assuming the head position as she noted with disdain. Someone had a serious leadership complex there. Sure, they hadn't officially elected a leader, but since this was a two people mission to begin with, it should have gone without saying that if they had a leader, it would be either Naruto or her. Or both. This was _their_ mission, and _their _team here, for god's sake. She shot a glare at Neji, before sitting back down between Naruto and Shino, who had been the only sort of cooperative one in their quarrel so far. Well, Naruto tried, at least.

"So where did you leave Akamaru?" She asked Kiba, who had finally backed away from poor Hinata, to distract from their previous conversation.

"Out there fighting," Kiba answered with a shrug. "He's a little too big for dungeon crawling anyways, and since I was with Shino and Lady Hyuuga here, his tracking skills weren't exactly needed."

"Neither were yours," Neji pointed out, apparently ignoring the nickname Kiba had bestowed him with as well as he could.

"Well sorry for being worried about my teammate!" Kiba said indignantly, pulling Hinata closer to him. "And the last time I saw you alone with her, you kind of tried to kill her, so I had to tag along!"

"Can we all just calm down and remember that we're supposed to be _hiding_ right now?" Sakura injected before the conversation could escalate. Again.

"There's nothing to hide from," Neji pointed out. "There is nobody down here besides us."

"And surely, nobody can ever find the entrances you have used to find us down here." Sakura rolled her eyes. "It's universally known that all these other villages attacking us have wildly inferior tracking skills, and nobody would want to come after Sasuke-kun anyways, am I right?"

"They _do_ have inferior tracking skills," Neji scoffed. "At least compared to some."

"Can somebody knock _him_ out, please?" Kiba demanded. "He's being totally uncooperative and endangers the mission by provoking his teammates!"

"This is not our mission to begin with," Shino pointed out quietly. "If anything, that call lies with Haruno-san or Uzumaki-san." He was slowly becoming Sakura's favorite person.

"Okay, what the hell is even going on here anymore?" Naruto demanded, visibly irritated by the general situation. "Why are you all arguing?"

"Mostly because Lady Hyuuga is being a bitch," Kiba explained, shrugging.

"And challenging your authority," Shino spelled it out for him.

"...I have authority?" Naruto looked pleased by this.

"Not exactly," Sakura said, severely annoyed by all of this. "This is our mission with no designated leader, and Neji is trying to claim that spot despite not being part of it."

"Because I'm clearly the most qualified here," Neji defended himself, crossing his arms. "You didn't even think of tying up someone who is a highly dangerous prisoner."

"Because he poses no immediate threat due to his medical condition," Sakura reminded him sharply. "I don't care about anything else in this petty power struggle you insist on heaving, but leave the medical evaluations up to _me_, because in that field, I most definitely _do_ outrank everyone here."

"C-can't we just all cooperate?" Hinata suggested quietly, getting involved in the conversation for the first time. "There is no immediate danger, and no need to fight about things right now, is there? So... Why are we even doing this?"

"Exactly what she said," Naruto agreed. "From where I stand, things are going pretty well. We got Sasuke, nobody's dying, and we're not under attack, so why is it even important who has what kind of authority here? Well, except for the medical stuff, I agree, and that's definitely Sakura's thing." He pointed towards the hole in his jacket and chest where the Chidori had gone through him. "She sort of made my lung not collapse after it's been run through completely, and the bastard is still alive as well, so, uhm, yeah. Let her decide on that and like, decide together on everything else."

"Thanks." Sakura had to remember that trick; maybe if she started hardly saying anything at all, people would automatically start listening to what she had to say. This was the second time Hinata had managed that since they'd been down here. "And for further procedures I'd like to suggest that we just wait in relative silence until we either receive further notice, are under attack or Sasuke-kun is stable for transportation again, which won't be until a few more hours. All in favor?"

Since there weren't actually any other options, she wasn't all that surprised that all were indeed in favor, but oh well. Small victories and all that.

"Awesome!" Naruto commented on the vote, grinning. "So now you all behave and let me sleep and then we can get out of here!"

At least someone was kind of optimistic about their situation, Sakura mused. Oh well. Things were going exceptionally well for their circumstances, actually. Her company right now was exhausting, but at least they weren't almost completely unprotected anymore. Silver linings. Silver linings everywhere.

* * *

Sakura hadn't even realized she'd dozed off until she vaguely felt her mind being invaded. Again.

_Forehead girl, where the hell are you?_, Ino's voice in her head woke her up non-too gently.

_On that secret mission I'm not supposed to tell you about_. Answering was always weird. It was not like Ino could read all of her thoughts, oh dear god that'd be creepy, it was more like she was talking to her main stream on consciousness, so Sakura had to consciously think back to answer. And that was hard when you were sort of asleep.

_Sleeping on the job? Geez, your work ethic really sucks lately. _Getting insulted by your main consciousness also wasn't the most pleasant experience Sakura had ever had. Oh well.

_If you knew what I've been through the last few hours, you wouldn't be talking like that. Or thinking. Or whatever, _she half-heartedly tried to defend herself. And she truly was exhausted, now seemingly even more so than before she had dozed off.

_Well, then I hope you got Sasuke-kun back at least_, Ino scoffed at her. And Sakura was wide-awake.

_How do you know about that? _She asked, though maybe that hadn't been her smartest move, all things considered.

_Well, I'm working at the command center and was told to ask you about this, so that kinda helps_, Ino answered, sounding smug.

_Do you happen to have any news or instructions for us?_ If she had been instructed to invade her mind, there was probably a reason for that. And that reason hopefully included further instructions to get out of there as soon as possible.

_Yeah, well, the fighting up here calmed down enough for you to get back up here, provided you can still walk_, Ino answered. _Hinata and her bodyguards _are_ with you, right?_

_They sure are_, Sakura confirmed. _So everything's okay up there?_

_For the most part. Losses were way less than anticipated and the attacks from all those minor villages were fought off. Orochimaru is still fighting, though, but we were told to get back home with everyone as soon as we got you back up. That has probably more to do with several Hyuuga people annoying Kakashi for the last few hours than with your popularity, though. _Sakura felt Ino hesitating; another weird feature, she could tell that there was more to come, even though the voice was quiet. _Did you manage to get Sasuke-kun?_

_Yes_, Sakura answered. _He's still unconscious and recovering from severe injuries, but he's gonna be okay. And we'll bring him back. It's not like he can do anything about it right now, anyways._

_That's... Good, I guess. _Ino's relief was bleeding over in Sakura's consciousness, making her feel way better about the whole situation than she probably should. But it sure was a nice feeling. _So hurry up and get here, before somebody else decides to randomly attack us. _

_Will do_, Sakura promised. _Now get out of my head._

She finally opened her eyes to take in her surroundings. Naruto had his head on her shoulder and was sleeping peacefully. Sasuke across from her had a few fresh looking specks of blood on his shirt that probably came from coughing, but seemed to remain unconscious. That was good; the blood was getting out if his lungs and he still couldn't fight back.

Kiba next do him was nervously drumming with his fingers on his own knees, Hinata to his left was asleep as well.

To her own left sat Shino, and telling whether he was asleep or not was kinda hard considering the sun glasses and his generally quiet behavior. Neji, still sitting at the head, was wide awake however, scouting the area with his Byakugan and frowning.

"It seems like we just received further orders," Sakura announced, softly shaking Naruto awake and away from her shoulder. "Ino just talked to me."

"Did she," Neji scoffed, clearly not quite convinced. "So?"

"The fighting has calmed down enough for us to move back to the surface," she recapitulated, leaning forward to check up on Sasuke's condition. The fever was almost gone, and he was actually asleep instead of unconscious. Definitely stable for transportation, anyways.

"Alright!" Naruto yawned, his enthusiasm unstifled. "So how do we do this?"

"How far to the closest exit?" Sakura asked Neji.

"A ten minute walk when transporting someone," he answered. "We emerge in the forest, but close to a clearing where a major battle has taken place, and relatively far from where Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama are still fighting Orochimaru. No hostile shinobi in sight right now."

"Perfect." She readjusted Sasuke's restraints, making them tighter, just in case he woke up during transportation and didn't feel too pleased with his current situation. Which he probably wouldn't. Good thing he was still mostly out of chakra, really. She also bound his feet in such a way that if he woke up, he could walk on his own, but not run away. Again, just in case.

"So how _do_ we do this?" Kiba repeated Naruto's question. "Just take him and carry him outta here?"

"Got a better idea?" Sakura countered. "Carrying duties will fall to you, me and Shino, by the way, since we need Neji and Hinata on the look-out and I won't let Naruto put any pressure on his lungs."

"I'm fine!" Naruto protested. "Seriously! Hardly even hurts anymore!"

"See, you said 'hardly'," Sakura pointed out dryly. "So it still does hurt, and as long as that's so, you are not putting any unnecessary pressure on anything, got it?"

"Fine, whatever." He rolled his eyes dramatically. "Is that what it's like to have a mom?"

"Depends on the mom," Kiba informed him darkly, roughly grabbing Sasuke by the arm to follow Neji and Shino outside. "Mine's more forceful, and not as nice."

"Gentle!" Sakura chided him, taking Sasuke's other arm while dragging him out. "He's still sick and recovering from injuries, okay? No rough handling!"

"Whatever." Now it was Kiba's turn to dramatically roll his eyes.

Sakura hadn't even noticed how stuffy their little hiding place had become within the few hours they'd spent there, until she stepped out into the corridor, holding onto Sasuke's left arms, and breathed in something at least resembling fresh air for the first time since she'd brought down that hall. Ugh, that one would probably haunt her for the rest of her life.

* * *

Sakura, honey, you have no idea. Anyways, after a chapter of sitting around and bitching, we will actually get to do exciting things in two weeks! Familiar characters will appear! Fights will be fought! A lot of violence will happen! An Sasuke will finally TALK TO PEOPLE! So stay tuned. And keep the reviews coming :) I enjoy feedback and talking to you people, and stuff.


	5. Kill You Heroes

_A/N: Hey guys! Thanks for all the reviews, you keep making my days a little brighter 3 _  
_This week, characters will appear (unless you blink and miss them), fights will be fought (briefly) and SASUKE WILL TALK TO PEOPLE!_

* * *

Kill Your Heroes

Once they'd all stepped out of their cozy little hiding space, Neji took the lead, because of course he did, together with Shino, while Naruto and Hinata took the rear, and Sakura and Kiba were carrying Sasuke in the middle. That way, they'd get optimal protection from both sides in case of an ambush. Though granted, ambushing a Hyuuga was close to impossible to begin with, at least when they were on the look-out.

Half carrying, half dragging Sasuke along slowed them down significantly, but carrying him in any other way would have left both her and Kiba even less able to defend themselves if need be, and in their profession, paranoia was one of the first things they were taught. Also, these underground tunnels and halls and secret passaged made it really, _really_ easy for her to be paranoid right now.

They had barely made a few feet down the corridor when Neji stopped them.

"There's an ambush," he announced. "Waiting for us at the closest entrance. We have to change course."

"This way." Hinata gestured back to a recent fork in the corridors. "That's the way I came, and it's clear so far."

So they followed her lead for a while, until Sakura felt Sasuke tensing next to her. His head came up, and he was looking onwards with eyes still clouded from exhaustion, not quite able to make out his surroundings.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!" Kiba greeted him, not without a slight hint of malice. Or, well, more than a hint.

"What the hell?" Sasuke glared at him, looking confused, and then tried to yank his arms free, to no avail. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Getting your sorry ass home," Kiba informed him. Sasuke tried shaking him off again, this time more violently, but was shaken by a fit of coughing up some blood for his efforts.

"Don't struggle," Sakura urged him, gently patting his arm, trying to calm him down. "You were badly injured and it won't do you any good, anyways."

"Let me go!" Sasuke barked, directing his death glare at her now. "I warn you, let me go immediately or..."

"I don't think you're in a position to issue warnings right now," Neji noted with a hint of smugness. "You are restrained, well-guarded, and in no condition to fight, so better give in immediately."

"Fuck you," Sasuke spat at him, struggling more and more, so that Sakura and Kiba now had to keep him from tripping himself as well, since is restraints left not much room to do so. She'd always been good at knotting. "As if you could take me on!"

"Dude, you got knocked out by Sakura and have been unconscious for hours," Kiba informed him. "I think we could all take you on, on our own and with one hand tied back right now."

"Sasuke, please!" Naruto now got involved. "We don't want to harm you; we just want to take you home!"

"I don't _want_ to go home!" Sasuke kindly informed them, since he obviously hadn't made this sentiment clear yet. "You can't make me!"

Sakura was a little taken aback by the lack of foresight he was showing here; he was still trying to shake Kiba and her off, despite the fact that that very clearly was not happening any time soon, but Sasuke didn't seem to realize that. Or how bad his situation actually was, all things considered; there simply was no way out for him right now, and one of the first things a shinobi learned was when to save his strength. Even from his perspective, fighting back _now_ really wasn't the smartest move. Once they were in the open field, maybe, or simply running off as soon as they trusted him not to, like, well, last time, would have been the smart thing to do.

But the Sasuke-kun she was currently holding onto for her, and more likely _his__,_ dear life clearly wasn't interested in smart choices. Instead, he tried to trip Kiba, an act made incredibly subtle by the foot restraints he was wearing, and was accordingly easily blocked. Then he tried to elbow her, made close to impossible to perform effectively by the fact that she kind of was holding his elbow right now and therefore anticipated every movement he made with it.

"Stop fighting this!" Naruto demanded, stepping forwards and holding Sasuke by the shoulders. "There's no way out now, and you were injured! Don't do this to yourself!"

"How come you can walk then?" Sasuke countered. "You were injured worse than I was!"

"His regenerative abilities are higher than yours," Sakura informed him, still trying to calm him down. "The fact that you're both conscious right now is close to a miracle, really, lung damage usually takes ages to recover from..."

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke asked her disdainfully.

"Well..." She pointed towards the hole on his new, strangely revealing and sort of traditional looking outfit, and the scar underneath she had been in too much of a hurry to heal completely. "You took a Rasengan straight through the shoulder, which pierced your lung slightly, and you hit Naruto straight through the right lung wing, so..."

Sasuke just stared at her with suspicion.

"Yeah, she's a medic now," Naruto explained, grinning. "And not a half-bad one either, all things considered. Or we wouldn't be standing here."

"And she knocked you out," Kiba added, apparently quite keen on rubbing that little detail in, effectively enraging Sasuke even more, as he continued to fight back with new vigor.

"Talking won't get us anywhere," Neji noted. "We need to get moving."

"Well, carrying him isn't that easy when he's being like this," Kiba complained.

"Then knock him out again," Neji constructively suggested. "Or sedate him, or whatever will get the job done, just get on with it."

Sakura shoved the arm she was holding into Naruto's hands to fumble about in her pouch. She had something to cause paralysis, but she really didn't want to use that on someone still recovering from a lung injury. She also had a few things that would knock him out cold, but they were all kind of aggressive as well and not suited for him in his current shape. And she had two or three poisons with her that would probably kill him, so those were out, too.

She decided on the least aggressive anesthetic she had with her and showed it to Sasuke.

"This will put you to sleep," she announced. "Or we could just knock you unconscious again, if you'd prefer to be carried around like a sack of rice. But I think you and I both would prefer it if you walked yourself. It's your choice." She pulled a senbon out of her weapon's pouch and dipped it into the vial. That dosage of the anesthetic wouldn't really knock him out cold, but slow him down immensely regardless and make him a lot easier to handle.

"You wouldn't," Sasuke spat at her. Oh dear. He shouldn't have done that. Now he'd left her no choice, really. Though just punching him in the gut again sounded more and more appealing by the second...

Yet, she hesitated. She could feel Neji rolling his eyes, Kiba sneering and Naruto silently begging her not to do it, and she didn't want to, but...

She punched Sasuke in the gut. Not with full force, or as close to it as she had been able to, like when she had kept him from fleeing, but with enough force to make him bend over and cough up more blood, though not from any damage she caused. She grabbed his head while he was down, and bent down close enough for the strands of his spiky hair to tickle her nose.

"I would," she then whispered, so only he could hear. "Trust me, I would. I don't want to, I'd infinitely prefer it if you just walked on your own, but right now, there is close to nothing I would not do, if it meant getting you back home, do you understand?" She turned his head upwards, so that he was now glaring directly at her, their faces only inches apart. "In the last few hours, I've brought down a hall on six of those cursed seal bearers. I've stopped you from getting away again. I've kept you alive. I kept _Naruto_ alive, who you almost killed, and I put up with this bunch, which trust me, wasn't easy. And I've done it all for you. There is no way out for you right now, so please, _please_ show me just this little bit of gratitude and _walk on your own_. But never, _ever_ assume I wouldn't do whatever it takes to get you back."

She let go of him, not without gently wiping the coughed-up blood off his face, and stood up straight again. Sasuke followed her with his gaze, looking positively disturbed by what she had just said and done, but at least he wasn't fighting back anymore. Small victories.

She took Sasuke's arm from Naruto again and dragged him along, noticing that he was indeed walking on his own now, if a little reluctantly just because he could, but that didn't matter. What mattered now was getting out of here.

She felt everyone else staring at her, and asking the unspoken question of _How the hell did you do that?_, but she wouldn't have had an answer even if they'd asked it aloud. She just did it, somehow, and it worked. Sort of.

"Oh dear..." Hinata said shortly before they had to take another turn.

"I don't like the sound of that," Kiba on Sasuke's other side snorted.

"The enemies trying to ambush us have gathered in front of the entrance we are now pursuing," Neji explained.

"The same people?" Naruto asked for clarification. "Are you sure? How did they know we changed course?"

"I don't know," Neji admitted. "One of them has a very strange chakra signature though, not unlike your own, so maybe that's how."

"Well, if they can sense our movements, then we can't really avoid them, can we?" Sakura surmised. "So what do we do?"

"Go back to the other exit," Neji decided. "We can't avoid a fight, and the terrain there is better suited for one. Unless we want to wait it out and have them attack us down here, but I believe most of us don't do well in close quarters. Especially not with a prisoner of ambiguous affiliation."

"He means Sasuke-kun might side with them," Sakura explained that term to Naruto. Sasuke himself had chosen the silent treatment as his form of rebellion against his captors. Not that it did him much good. "And yes, I agree, close quarters are to be avoided. How many are there?"

"Eighteen," Neji answered. Hinata nodded quietly. "We can take them on, of course, but the prisoner aspect makes it difficult to estimate."

"Well, if we can't avoid them anyways, let's just go take them on and see," Naruto suggested. "And I mean, once we're on the surface, there are Konoha shinobi everywhere, right? So at least we'll have some help if things go badly."

* * *

Ten minutes later, walking went quite a bit faster without having to drag Sasuke around, they had reached the exit, just as their opponents had, and had also developed a battle plan; should things really go too badly, Sakura and Kiba were to take Sasuke and run back down to the second entrance and try getting help from there. Sakura wasn't a big fan of the plan since she was the medic and battles had a tendency to go a lot better with one of those around, but Neji had also reminded her that advertising her status as a medic pretty much just painted a target on her. A big, neon colored and blinking one.

When Sasuke-kun, Kiba and her came up to the surface last, the others had already formed a defensive semi-circle, but no fighting had happened yet.

"There he comes!" A female voice announced.

The forehead protectors and clothing choices all around showed that the people waiting for them were Oto ninjas that apparently had escaped the battles so far. All of them looked positively enraged, except for the girl, looking no older than their little entourage was, her bright red hair providing a rare spot of color amongst the otherwise purple and black uniformity.

"Traitor!" Someone yelled at... Sasuke? It made no sense, but Sasuke was the only person they knew, so... what the hell?

"Kill him!" Someone else commanded, and they all started attacking.

"What the hell?!" She heard Naruto shout, not really paying attention who he was fighting at the moment, as she was too busy dodging incoming attacks while still holding onto Sasuke. "Why are you attacking him?"

"This is all his fault!" One of the Oto Nins explained. "Without him, Oto would still exist!"

Well. Hard to argue with that.

"But you promised not to hurt him!" The red haired girl had not joined the attack and looked as surprised at this turn of events as they were. "Please, you promised!"

She was nonchalantly backhanded into a tree for her pleas. Sakura lost track of what happened to her afterwards. She was too busy dodging attacks with only one free hand, as she didn't dare to let go of Sasuke.

"Oh fuck no," Kiba on Sasuke's other side moaned.

She followed his gaze. Oh fuck no. Cursed Seal bearer. Only one so far, but still.

"Not again!" She moaned, but was relieved as a small platoon of Narutos swarmed him, and Neji looked like he really wanted to fight the creature as well. Good for them. And her. And Kiba, who seemed like he really didn't want to reacquaint himself with the Juin and its effects on people, either. So instead, they just kept people away from Sasuke as well as they could while still holding onto him, shaking him quite a bit. Someone with a weaker stomach might have gotten sick from it, really.

"This is ridiculous," Sasuke informed them after a few minutes, by which he had taken up dodging _for _them by crouching down at the right time or bending out of harm's way; a quick glance showed Sakura that he had activated his Sharingan to help with that. And at least he was helping them, for now.

"I agree!" Kiba huffed, clawing at one opponent while trying to elbow another out of the way, getting cut up the arm for his efforts. "You should just take him and run!"

"And then the whole bunch follows me and I can't even protect myself because I'm too busy carrying him," Sakura countered. "No, thanks. I have a better idea."

And with that, she first used an elaborate kick to bring her three current opponents down to the floor, and then brought her heel down to cause a significant crack in the ground.

"Watch it!" Kiba warned her, almost falling into it.

"Sorry," she apologized and shoved Sasuke down into the crack up to the elbows, so he couldn't get out of it without assistance.

"What the hell?!" Sasuke complained, while Kiba had to bite back a laugh.

"Sorry!" Sakura apologized to him as well. "But we really can't risk you running off now!"

"These people are trying to kill _me_!" Sasuke pointed out. "At least cut me loose and give me a fighting chance!"

"I am your fighting chance!" Sakura replied, punching someone hopefully hard enough to make his nose rupture his brain, she couldn't quite tell, but at least he didn't get back up again, and that was all that mattered.

"I like my odds better when I can defend myself!" Sasuke argued from his hole in the ground. "At least cut lose my hands!"

"And how do I know this isn't just a set-up and once you are free, all these people will welcome you back with open arms?" She kicked someone into Kiba's area of responsibility, even though he seemed a little distracted by trying not to laugh, and jammed a Kunai into someone else's right trapezius, making their right arm incredibly painful to use.

"What the fuck happened to make you so paranoid?" Sasuke asked.

Wow. Really? Did he _really _have to ask this? She shot him a disbelieving glance, and was just about to point out that maybe, getting knocked out from behind by someone she'd at least trusted not to harm her up to that point, and then getting left behind on a _bench_, in the middle of the night, might have played a part in that development, but before she could coherently form the words for this, she was knocked to the ground, face first, and face facing the back of Sasuke's head, at least before he turned as much as he could to look at her.

"See?" He had the audacity to ask. "Get me out of here or we're both done for!"

"Not a chance," she answered through grit teeth, pulling his sword from his elaborate belt; leaving that on him hadn't seemed as much of a safety risk back when he was unconscious, and with his tied hands and the sword hilt facing in different directions, using it to free himself had been out of the question as well.

And she could use a sword now, anyways; keeping enemies at a distance was way better and less risky for both of them. Now she could gut people without having to get near them, as she immediately proved on someone trying to attack Sasuke from behind, spilling entrails on the ground when pulling the sword back. Ew.

She cut down to other assailants who had gotten past Kiba and were closing in on Sasuke and her from the front. She'd never really been one for swords, but of course she was familiar with basic usage and all in all, this was no different than a really long tanto, anyways.

Sasuke audibly disagreed, wincing whenever she used his sword for anything, basically.

"That's not how you..." He started to protest, before drawing a horrified breath at her actually cutting a head off, kicking the body away to avoid getting even more blood on herself. Damn, that thing was sharp! "Stop that, you're going to ruin it!"

"It's a sword," she said, by now entirely unaffected by anything Sasuke had to say for some reason she wasn't too keen to dwell on at the moment. "And I'm using it to kill people and protect us. I don't think there's anything wrong about that."

Sasuke seemed to disagree, but she just tuned him out and lost herself completely in the fight. Sure, this wasn't quite what she'd imagined, and this new Sasuke was... Weird, and _annoying_ somehow and really not at all what she had expected... Then again, come to think of it, she hadn't really thought much about what Sasuke would be like when they got him back, and just silently assumed everything would be the same... But they had just taken him prisoner and were forcefully removing him from his chosen life (and casually killing everyone that had been part of that life, not that Sasuke seemed to care much about that), so, okay, he did have every right to be pissed at them.

It was still annoying.

This went on for a while; the stream of attackers never seeming to end, but Kiba and her managed to keep them away from Sasuke, while she occasionally caught glimpses of Naruto and Neji taking care of the single cursed seal bearer, who was thus posing no immediate threat to their target.

A chill went through her, overriding all her other senses, until there was nothing there except for that cold feeling of unease, swallowing her whole. Then she heard Sasuke scream and whirled around. Had she missed a target? Had someone snuck past her?

No. No, she hadn't. Sasuke was glowing. Glowing purple. Crouching in pain as much as he could, given his situation, black marks crawling all over his body.

"Don't!" She shrieked, hurrying towards him. "Don't activate your seal, you don't have the chakra, you're not physically fit enough to..."

"Not... doing... anything..." Sasuke panted. Out of the corner of her eyes, Sakura noticed the other curse seal bearer collapsing and clutching his seal, so it was apparently acting up as well. Sasuke meanwhile was now completely covered in the black swirls, his skin slowly turning into the purplish-grey-brownish color all the people she had brought the hall down on had been. His hair was getting longer and lighter, now a silvery shade of purple, and a dark mark spread over his face.

"Oh, fuck..." Kiba muttered, looking petrified. But Sakura kept running towards Sasuke, who was still screaming in pain through all of this, but had broken his restraints thanks to the unnatural strength and resilience the cursed seal gave to its bearers. But his body still wouldn't be able to sustain this kind of change, not with the lung damage and everything that had happened... Wings broke through his back, or at least Sakura assumed that's what Naruto had referred to as his wings; they looked more like misshapen claws or hands, and really not like he could fly using them.

"Try fighting it!" She pleaded, kneeling down in front of him, but he was fighting the wrong thing, made apparent by the flapping of his wing-like extensions, who actually managed to lift him out of the ground, making Sakura do something very stupid.

She held onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and torso, just to _keep him from flying away_, as ridiculous as that notion sounded; he'd never have the strength to actually go through with this, cursed seal or no, and staying like this for much longer could _kill_ him, as far as she knew. And she had researched the cursed seal and its effects quite a bit in the last eighteen months, as much as had been possible with their resources on the matter.

"Please!" She whispered in his ear. She couldn't let him die, not when they finally _had_ him, not when they were so close... Not on her watch at all. "Just... Just fight this..."

He fought her instead, shaking violently, trying to throw her off, claw her off, kick her off, but she didn't let go. And all things considered, just holding on seemed easier than letting go, because she never had been able to do that, anyways. And she wasn't about to start now. Not when she felt the cuts and bruises on her arms and sides, some of them caused by him, some of them simply re-opened or hit again, not when she actually felt her feet leaving the ground, not when his strength finally seemed to leave him and they fell to the ground. But Sasuke, or whatever it was that had taken hold of him, since he didn't seem quite like himself, even like the weird, annoying self she'd been dealing with all day, was still trying to shake her off, or get away, probably both, she didn't care.

And then there was Naruto, whom she hadn't even noticed arrive, but there he was, holding onto them both, taking the hits and kicks and claws with her, until finally, finally it was all over.

The wings grew back in, the skin turned to its usual pale shade again, the hair was back to normal, and Sasuke was unconscious. Weak, but alive, and _still there_, and that's all that mattered. And there they lay, all three of them, both her and Naruto still holding on in fear, completely oblivious to their surroundings, until a sneering voice broke them out of their stupor.

"So I take it you're done here?"

Naruto, who had been on top of the pile, sat up first, then grinned.

"Hey, Granny!" He greeted who Sakura assumed to be Tsunade, but couldn't tell for sure since she was definitely not letting go or looking up. Only bad things lay there. "You look about as crappy as I feel! And what the hell is that basket?"

"That's a head basket," someone Sakura could now tell for sure was Tsunade answered. "And watch your tongue, I've been fighting for almost twenty-four hours straight, _and _just saved all of your asses."

"So... You're carrying a head around in that?" Naruto wisely concluded. "Ew!"

"Mostly for decorational purposes," Tsunade explained, walking towards them until crouching down in front of Sakura. "It's okay, Sakura, I'll take the Uchiha from here."

"He's completely out of chakra and weak and still recovering from lung injuries, well, a hole in his shoulder, a few cracked ribs, and some internal bleeding because I had to punch him, twice, oh god, I didn't check if I broke anything the second time..." Sakura started her report, then sitting up abruptly, getting ready to perform a new examination on Sasuke, how could she have missed that? Sure, she hadn't hit him with anything resembling full force, but, uh, when full force meant a fist going right through, and yes, she'd done that before, mostly by accident, that didn't really mean anything, so...

"Like I said, I'll take it from here," Tsunade repeated, her voice low and soothing. "Are you okay? You look even more fucked up than I do."

"I'm fine," Sakura assured her. "Blood's not mine, for the most part, and nothing is still bleeding, so I'm good."

"Awesome," Tsunade tousled her hair, then grabbed Sasuke and slung him over her shoulder like a sack of rice. Sakura winced.

"Careful! Possible internal bleeding!" She reminded her master, who just laughed.

"I've dealt with that before," Tsunade informed her, looking amused. "Are you in shape enough to heal?"

"I guess," Sakura mumbled and got up.

"Then go join the healing tents," Tsunade ordered. "I hear they're pretty crowded right now and can use every extra hand. The rest of you, either get fixed up or get ready for departure. We are so done with this place."

* * *

Since nobody in their little entourage had been hurt significantly, they quietly made their way back towards the encampments to either report back to their combat unit and commanding officer, which most likely wasn't going to be pleasant since besides Naruto none of them had been gone on official orders, or, in Sakura's case, to the healing tents. They chose a route well away from the battle fields, much to Sakura's relief, as she was in no mood to see any carnage she couldn't fix. The hints of it she could still smell in the air and make out on a distant clearing were enough for her already.

"Haruno," she was suddenly addressed by Neji. "Can I trouble you for a moment?"

From his expectant look and the fact he had stopped and seemed to be waiting for her, Sakura deduced he wanted her to go with him. She shared a glance with Naruto, who shrugged and led their entourage onwards, so she followed Neji straight towards the clearing she'd been meaning to avoid.

"What is it?" She asked, feeling slightly uneasy; the battle field had been abandoned hours ago, and everyone who could be saved had been taken to the healing tents anyways, so she really didn't see what she was supposed to do there.

"It... Appears the medical squads made a mistake," Neji answered, sounding strangely uncomfortable. "They seem to not have collected someone I can clearly see is still alive."

"Then why aren't we running faster?!" Sakura asked, breaking into a run. If the medical squads deemed someone dead, they were usually gravely injured, too gravely to be fixed anymore, and if that person had managed to hang on for so long...

Arriving on the clearing was like a punch in the gut. Or several. Dealt by herself. Going right through.

It was still littered with corpses, strewn over a field of debris that stretched over the whole clearing; blood and mud everywhere, slowing down the decomposition, but doing nothing against the smell. And it looked as if the ground had just... Given in, or collapsed for... Some reason...

"Neji..." Sakura had to fight real hard to keep the vomit down. "What happened here?"

"The ground... Collapsed for no apparent reason," he answered hesitantly. "It's what turned the battle around."

"Oh god..." She curled up her fists, trying hard to stay composed. _She _had caused all of this carnage. This was what had happened when she brought that hall down; not even considering what might be on top... All of these corpses... She'd killed them all...

Neji grabbed her arm and dragged her along before she could think about this any further, right to the edge of the clearing, where she saw a familiar head and torso above the ground, the lower half of the body buried in debris.

"Tenten!" Sakura screamed out and hurried over to her. Neji said she was still alive. That there was still _something_ left she could fix about this... Something...

"Her chakra is still circulating," Neji informed her. "Which is usually the first thing to stop upon death."

"I know," Sakura whispered, trying to blend out her horror at the carnage she'd caused while sending tentative waves of chakra through Tenten's head. Brain activity. Weak pulse, but pulse. Internal organs still working. Both legs and hips broken several times, but only minor spinal cord damage. Also dehydration. How long had she been left here?

"Hold her still," Sakura instructed Neji, waving him over and showing him where to hold onto Tenten. "I need to remove the debris from her lower body, without moving her spine any more than necessary."

It was nice to see him following orders without question for a change, she mused, while she dug into all the strength she had left to pull the pieces of ground and rock pinning down Tenten out of the mud and tossing them aside, but only slightly since she was afraid to break anything on anyone else. Again.

When she was done, Tenten was still waist-deep in mud, but at least her legs were sort of directly treatable now, so Sakura went to work. Healing the minor spinal cord issue was actually the easiest thing to do here; there was only a little damage and nerves were easier to mend than bones. Mending the nerves of course also meant better transmission of pain signals to Tenten's brain, but that was probably not the worst thing right now, as it kept her unconscious. From what Sakura could tell, it had mostly been the pain that knocked her out in the first place.

Next came the hips; a clean break, nothing too hard to mend together again; still, animating bones to grow back together was always a little more tedious than closing cuts or repairing internal organs, since chakra healing was basically speeding up the body's natural healing process, and that took a pretty long time to mend bones as well.

After the hips were done, taking her about five minutes, she carefully dug up the knees; sure, Tenten's femur shafts were both broken in places as well, but once the knees were okay, she could be transported much easier.

The knee cap itself was undamaged, but there was some damage to the ligaments around it, which was preferable from a healing standpoint, since ligaments were also easier to repair than bones, and knee caps in particular were tricky.

The last thing she treated herself right there were the comminuted fractures, where the bone had been broken into several tiny pieces instead of just splitting cleanly, since those could get nasty during and after transportation, messing up muscles and ligaments and nerves and what not, and causing some more permanent damage she wanted to avoid. Luckily, there were only three such fractures, one on each thigh, or femur shaft, and one on her left shin. Setting these took her about another fifteen minutes, and she saw funny patterns once she was done. Which was good. Funny patterns prevented her from seeing the carnage she'd caused.

"It's okay, we can carry her now," she informed Neji, trying to get up, but staggering. Neji did hold her by the arm for support, but it was one of the least enthusiastic catches she'd ever witnessed. Not the most compassionate fellow, that. No one to faint on, for sure.

"Can _you_ carry her?" He asked, raising his eye brows in that mocking doubtful way he did. Asshole.

"Yes, I'm fine, just a little out of chakra... And exhausted," she explained. "It's been a rough day, don't you agree?" Instead of maybe being a little amused at her joke, Neji just rolled his eyes. Wow. After sort of doing him a favor, he could at least have laughed at her jokes. Asshole.

Sakura just rolled her eyes as well, which hurt just a little, and carefully scooped Tenten up under her knees, gesturing for Neji to take the top half from under the shoulders, carefully removing her from the mud and carrying her off. Huh. Tenten got an almost worried look from him, albeit while being unconscious and deemed dead by the medical squads before. But if that was all it took to make Hyuuga Neji show emotion... Oh well. None of her business. Not her place to judge. Or make assumptions. Or anything. Ever.

Right now, everything she wanted and quite frankly needed to do was get some rest, and some distance to what had happened today. Oh yes. Rest was good.

* * *

_And because rest is so good, we will spend the next few chapters doing just that. Resting. And by resting I mean talking. A lot. Because this story isn't dialogue heavy enough yet. See you in two weeks!_


End file.
